too vague to allow of its, correct determination, as no mention is made of the white eyebrow, or of
the white on the outer tail-feathers or on the under surface of the wing. Yet the species can hardly
be Merula atrigularis, which would never be described as “ slaty-black,” nor could the chestnut
flanks of Merula protomomelcena have been passed over without mention.
The Siberian Ground-Thrush is an occasional visitor to Central and Western Europe. About a
dozen examples have been met with in Germany. Besides the one from the island of Riigen
mentioned above, there is the immature male recorded by Naumann from the Harz Mountains, as
well as one from Prussian Silesia obtained on the 22nd of October, 1828; while a third from Halber-
stadt and two procured between Berlin and Stettin are also noticed by him (Vog. Deutschl. xiii.
p. 861). A seventh German example, a female, was shot at Elbing, near the Gulf of Danzig, on the
25th of August 1851, and is now in the collection of Yon Homeyer in Stolp [of. Seebohm, Brit.
Birds, i. p. 204).
There are two examples (one adult, the other immature) in the Museum of the Forstakademie
at Neustadt in Mark Brandenburg, Prussia, which are said to have been procured in the neighbourhood
(Schalow, J. f. O. 1876, p. 142). A male was shot on the 10th of October, 1878, at Treptan
near the coast of Pomerania between Stettin and Stolp (Altum, J. f. O. 1878, p. 107). A specimen
in the Museum of the Forstakademie at Eberswald, between Berlin and Stettin, is said to have been
caught in the neighbourhood (Altum, J. f. O. 1879, p. 216). There is an example in the Museum of
the Univerity at Breslau which is said to have been procured in the Province of Silesia (Floericke,
J .f . O. 1891, p. 191).
I t has occurred twice in Holland; an immature male was shot in September, 1858, near
Paterswolde in the Province of Drenthe, and a still younger male was caught on the 1st of October,
1856, near Noordwyk in the Province of South Holland (Blaauw, Notes Leyden Mus. xv. p. 189).
According to Dr. Dubois, a single occurrence is known from Belgium, a young male having been
caught near Neufchaleau late in September, 1877 (Bull. Acad. Roy. Belgique, (2) xlvii. no. 6).
According to Degland and Gerbe (Orn. Eur. i. p. 418) a young male bird was killed in 1847 by
M. Loche in the marshes of the Saintongue. The species is figured by Jaubert and Barthelemy-
Lapommeraye in their | Richesses Omithologiques ’ (pi. xiii. fig. 2). The occurrence of the species
in Italy was recorded by Prof. Giglioli (Ibis, 1881, p. 196); but he has recently come to the
conclusion that the specimen was only an extraordinary variety of the Common Blackbird, and he
has withdrawn the Siberian Thrush from the list of Italian birds (Avif. Ital. p. 93). A specimen was
shot near Kustendji, in Bulgaria, by Mr. A. Cullen (cf. Elwes & Buckley, Ibis, 1890, p. 196).
As regards its occurrence in England, a specimen of this Thrush is said to have been caught at
Bonchurch, in the Isle of Wight, in the winter of 1874, but Mr. Howard Saunders does not consider
the evidence sufficient to warrant the inclusion of the species in the British list (Man. Brit. Birds,
p. 12). The second example recorded from England is in- the British Museum, to which it was
bequeathed by the late Mr. Frederick Bond, to whose collection it formerly belonged. It was sold to
him as a variety of the Redwing, and was said to have been killed between Guildford and Godalming
in the winter of 1860-61.
The Siberian Ground-Thrush breeds in the valleys of the Yenesei and the Lena near the Arctic
Circle. I found it in latitude 66^° near the junction of the Kureika and the Yenesei (Seebohm, Ibis,
1879, p. 5), and Dr. Theel says that it breeds in great numbers near Toorukhansk (lat. 66° N.), and
was seen as far north as latitude 67° (Seebohm, Ibis, 1880, p. 191). Mr. H. Leyboume Popham, in his
account of the birds observed by him on the Yenesei River (Ibis, 1897, p. 92), writes as follows:—
“ This handsome Thrush was often to be seen perched on the top of a tree, whistling a few rich notes,
but owing to its extreme wariness it was difficult to approach within shot, and it was only by careful
stalking that we managed to obtain three skins, all of males. It was most numerous around
Toorukhansk. We got several nests supposed to belong to this species, but we were never able
to thoroughly identify the eggs further than seeing the birds in the immediate vicinity of the
nest.”I
n Dauria the Siberian Ground-Thrush appears to be a spring and autumn migrant (Bybowski,
J. f. O. 1872, p. 437), occurring not only in the extreme west of that province;-but also in, the
extreme east (Taczanowski, J. f. O. 1874, p. 335). Godlewski says that he has observed the species
at the south of Lake Baikal, but it is very rare and does not appear there every year. It arrives at
the end of May, and he has killed a young bird on the lo th of October (Taczanowski, Faune
Orn. Sibir. Orient, p. 284).
Neither Middendorff nor Schrenck met with the species, but Radde procured two examples at
Tarei-Nor, near Nerchinsk, in the extreme east of Dauria (Reisen im Süden von Ost-Sibirien, ii.
p. 233). Jankowski obtained a single example on the island of Askold (laczanowski, J. f. O.
1881, p. 182), and it has been recorded from Pekin (Swinhoe, Ibis, 1863, p. 93). There is no evidence
that it remains during the winter in China, all the dates of its capture being either spring or
autumn: Amoy, April 19th (Swinhoe, P. Z. S. 1863, p. 279) ; Whampoa, 18th of April (Swinhoe,
Ibis, 1861, p. 37) ; Chefoo, end of May (Swinhoe, Ibis, 1874, p. 443); Formosa, Oct. (Swinhoe, spec,
in Seebohm Coll.). Abbé David states that it is far from common in China.
Davison found the species very common round the foot of Mount Nwalabo in Tenasserim
(lat. 14°) in April, appearing in flocks of sixty individuals, mostly young males with remains of spots
on the plumage (Hume and Davison, Stray Feathers, vi. 1878, p. 513), but it is not easy to determine
whether these birds were in their winter-quarters or only on migration. As has already been stated,
it has once occurred on the Andaman Islands.
There can he no doubt that Java and Sumatra are favourite winter-quarters of this species. Its
occurrence in Java has been mentioned, and Mr. Carl Bock obtained many examples in Sumatra,
some of which are in the British Museum and others in my collection.
This bird is so very shy and skulking that scarcely anything has been recorded of its habits.
When I was in Siberia I occasionally caught a hasty glimpse of a dark-coloured Thrush with a very
conspicuous white eyebrow not far from the village of Kureika on the Arctic Circle, whilst the
remains of the ice were still straggling down the Yenesei. It was an extremely shy and wary bird,
and though I occasionally saw it crossing the open ground between the birch-plantations I did not
succeed in shooting one until- the 19th of June. I was then walking in a dense birch-plantation ; the
leaves were not yet out on the trees, and a fortnight before the ground had been covered with a deep
bed of snow. This had melted and exposed a thick bed of leaves, the accumulation of many years,
amongst which the bird was searching diligently for food.
The nest is described by Messerschmidt as being placed among the branches of a dwarf alder,
and composed of mud mixed with grass, and lined with fine grass and small leaves. The eggs are
six in number, green with dark rufous spots. Those believed by Mr. Popham to be the eggs of this
species differed very much from those of Turdus dubius, having a pale blue ground-colour and
more distinct spots of reddish-brown. They measured 1T6 inch by 0'82 inch (Ibis, 1897, p. 92).
In the adult male the general colour of the upper parts is slaty-grey, approaching black on the
head, each feather being darker on the margin ; lores black ; eye-stripe white, broad, extending
nearly from the nostrils to the nape ; wing-coverts slaty-grey ; primary-coverts nearly black, with a
broad slaty-grey patch on the outer webs ; tertials slaty-grey ; secondaries and primaries dark brown,
margined on the outer webs with slaty-grey ; tail nearly black, with the lateral pair of feathers
paler, and the central pair suffused with slaty-grey ; there is a wedge of white more than half an inch
long at the tips of the lateral pair, and one more than a quarter of an inch long at the tips of the
next pair ; ear-coverts slaty-grey ; underparts slaty-grev, with a band of white down the belly and