WOOD THRUSH. 
Ill 
wise he must have changed his very nature. But Mr 
Edwards has also described and delineated the little 
thrush,* and has referred to Catesby as having drawn 
and engraved it before. Now this thrush of Edwards 
I know to be really a different species ; one not resident 
in Pennsylvania, but passing to the north in May, and 
returning the same way in October, and may be dis- 
tinguished from the true song thrush {turdus melodus ) 
by the spots being much broader, and not descending 
so far below the breast. It is also an inch shorter, 
with the cheeks of a bright tawny colour. Mr William 
Bartram, who transmitted this bird, more than fifty 
years ago, to Mr Edwards, by whom it was drawn and 
engraved, examined the two species in my presence ; 
and on comparing them with the one in Edwards, was 
satisfied that the bird there figured and described is not 
the wood thrush, ( turdus melodus ,) but the tawny 
cheeked kind above mentioned. This species I have 
never seen in Pennsylvania but in spring and fall. It 
is still more solitary than the former ; utters, at rare 
times, a single cry, similar to that of a chicken which 
has lost its mother; and is, probably, the same bird 
which is described by Sloane and Catesby. 
As the Count de Buffon has drawn his description 
from those above mentioned, the same observations 
apply equally to what he has said on the subject ; and 
the beautiful little theory which this writer had formed 
to account for its want of song, vanishes into empty 
air; viz. that the song thrush of Europe ( turdus 
musicus) had, at some time after the creation, rambled 
round by the northern ocean, and made its way to 
America; that, advancing to the south, it had there 
(of consequence) become degenerated by change of 
food and climate, so that its cry is now harsh and 
unpleasant, <c as are the cries of all birds that live in 
wild countries inhabited by savages.”f 
* Edwards, 296. 
f Buffon, vol. iii, 289. The figure in pi. enl. 898, has little 
or no resemblance to the wood thrush, being of a deep green olive 
above, and spotted to the tail below with long streaks of brown. 
