I t i I. GEOCIGHLA VARIA
HAN CII
GEOCICHLA YAEIA {Pali.)
WHITE’S GEOUND-THRUSH.
Turd/us varius, Pallas, Zoogr. Eosso-Asiat. i. p. 449 (1811),
Turdus aureus, Holandre, Ann. de Verron. 1825, p. 310.
Turdus sguamatus, Boie, Isis, 1835, p. 251.
Turdus whitei, Eyton, Barer Brit. B. p. 92 (1836).
Oreocincla whitei, Gould, P. Z. S. 1837, p. 136..
Oreocincla varia^ Gould, P. Z. S. 1837, p. 136.
Oreocincla aurea, Bp. Cat. Ucc. Eur. p. 34, no. 136 (1842).
Turdus lunulatus (nec Lath.), Blasius, List B. Eur. p. 9 (1862),
Oreocincla Tiancvi, Swinh. Ibis, 1863, p. 275.
Turdus dauma (nec Lath.), Pelz. Verh. zool.-bot. Gesellsch. Wien, xxi. p. 703 (1871).
Geociehla varia, Seebohm, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. v. p. 151 (1881).
Geociehla hancii, Seebohm, t. c, p. 153 (1881).
Oreocichla varia, Sharpe, Handb. B. Great Brit. ii. p. 243 (1894).
G. suprà olivaceo-brunnea, nigro lunulata : pileo notseoque ochrascenti-flavo variegatis : rectricibus 14 : remile
2a quam 5a longiore : alà 168-180 millim.
W hite’s Thrush, as it is familiarly called by English naturalists, was discovered in the middle of
the last century by Johann Georg .Gmelin near Krasnoyarsk in Central Siberia, and about the same
time by Georg Wilhelm Steller in the valley of the Bargusin Eiver, which flows into Lake Baikal.
The species, however, was not named until the publication of Pallas’s great work on the zoology of
Asiatic Bussia, when he bestowed/ on it the name of Turdus varius (Zoogr. Bosso-Asiat. i. p. 449).
J. G. Gmelin passed through Krasnoyarsk in January 1735, when White’s Thrush must have been
far away to the south in its winter-quarters ; but on his return journey, in 1740, he revisited the
“ city of the red hills ” about the middle of August, when he probably procured the specimens from
which Pallas took his descriptions.
Neither Pallas himself, nor his worthy followers in Siberian exploration, Middendorff or Schrenck,
obtained this species, but more recently it has been recorded from various districts of Siberia. In
1856 three examples were procured late in April and early in May in the kitchen-garden of a post-
house at Tarei-nor in the Kerbon Steppe, south of Nerchinsk, not far from the breeding-grounds Of
Pallas s Sand-Grouse (Badde, Beis. im Siiden von Ost-Sibirien, ii. p. 231). In the spring of 1873
examples were again procured in the same district by Dr. Dybowski (Tacz. J. f. O. 1874, p. 335).
Fifteen degrees further west Dr. Dybowski found it not uncommon during the last half of May
in the valley of the Selenga Biver, on the south-western extremity of Lake Baikal, between Irkutsk
and Kiachta (Tacz. J. f. O. 1872, p. 436), hut he did not find it breeding nor did he observe it on
the autumn migration. His travelling companion Victor Godlewski states, however, that it was seen
in September on the autumn migration (Tacz. Faune Orn; Siberie Orient, p. 282).
The range of White’s Thrush extends eastwards as far as the Pacific. It has been procured at
the end of April near Lake Hanka in the valley of the Ussuri, and a dead specimen was found in
the Northern Alashan Desert in Southern Mongolia (Pijevalski, in Bowley’s Orn. Misc. ii. p 900)
YOL. i. ‘ ■“ f