(14
WHITE'S THEUSH.
Titnlut Whitti, EYTON. GOULD. YARRELI..
Turdus—A T h r u s h . Whitii—Of W h i t e.
A SFKCIMKN of this bird was shot by Lord Malmcsbury, at Heron
Court, hi-- v, ; i t ,H . : l l - Christchurch, Hampshire, on the 24th. of January,
1828. Another is said to have been killed in the New Forest in the
same county, by one of the Forest keepers, but in the absence of
names or dates nothing conclusive can be said by me about it. Closely
allied species are natives of remote Japan and Java, and two specimens
of the former are related to have been obtained in Europe, on the
banks of the Elbe, but as Mr. Yarrell says that the wing of one of
them is longer than in the Japanese bird, it may belong to a distinct
species. Mr. Varreli further remarks that one of the two European
ones, and one from Japan, appear to be identical with Lord Maluicsbury's
specimen, and that another from Australia seems to agree with that
said to have been procured in the New Forest. If however 'facts arc
stubborn things,' so are measurements; for not to lay stress on the
difference between the respective lengths of each individual bird referred
to, only two of which, the Australian and the Japanese one, are alike
in this respect, the others being more or less widely different from
these and from each other, measuring severally twelve inches and a
half, twelve inches, eleven inches and a half, and ten inches and three
quarters in length, the comparative anatomy, so to call it, of each, is
also dissimilar: thus, in Lord Malmcshurv's specimen, the second and
fourth quill lea!hers are of equal length, and in the Japanese bird
the third and fourth; in the one from Java the second and sixth are
equal, in that from Australia the third, fourth, and fifth are nearly
equal, and in the one said to have been met with in the New Forest,
the third and fifth are equal. Mr. Gould also observes that the bill
in the European specimen is not so large as in the Asiatic ones. I
cannot therefore speak with any degree of certainty as to the specific
identity or dissimilarity of these different individuals, but all that I
can suggest is that the) may belong to iwo oi more different, but