Eastern Siberia, and he thinks that the species must migrate to China by another route, by Mongolia
and also by Chinese Manchuria.” /
Dr. Pleske gives the following note on M. ruficollis in bis account of Przewalski’s expeditions
(Wiss. Eesult. Reis. Przew. Zool. ii. p. 7):—“ To sum up the traveller’s copious notes, M. ruficollis
was not found nesting in any of the districts traversed by him. Its winter-quarters were determined
as being in Alashan, but to all the other countries it was a spring and autumn visitor, with the
occasional exceptions of the upper course of the Chuanche River and the province of Gan-su. In
the latter country four specimens were procured by Berezowski (see Bianchi, ‘ Aves Exped. Potan.
Gan-su,’ p. 101, 1891). Przewalski’s specimens were procured by him on the Upper Chuanche, the
country of the Urots in the Southern Gobi deserts, in Kuku-nor, Lob-nor, Alashan, and Zaidam
{cf. Pleske, t. c. p. 7). He met with it everywhere during his first journey through Mongolia,
with the exception of Lake Halka and Northern Thibet, but always on migration (Taczanowski,
i. c . y
V on Middendorff, as quoted by Taczanowski, gives the following dates :—The first birds of this
species were met with in the neighbourhood of Amingskaïa-Sloboda at the end of April. In the
Stanowoi Mountains (60° N. lat.) large troops passed in the first half of May, and the migration
was over before the end of the month, when they began building their nests in the chains on the
western slope, while T. fuscatus had entirely disappeared. Middendorff further states that on
approaching the crest of these Stanowoi Mountains no Thrushes were to be seen, and it was only
on the southern shore of the Sea of Okhotsk that some were noticed between the 18th of September
and the 22nd of October, in bands, but at such a distance that the species could not be distinguished.
According to the same observer, the Yaconts give the name of Pine-Thrush to M. ruficollis, and
Larch-Thrush to M. fuscata (Tacz. Faun. Orn. Sibir. Orient, pp. 303, 304). Kalinowski did not
meet with this Thrush in Corea, nor has it been recorded from Japan.
Three specimens are recorded by Prof. Oustalet as having been obtained by M. Bonvalot and
Prince Henry of Orleans—one on the Kansi-Daria on the 13th of October, 1889, at So and Tchoungo
in Thibet, in April 1890, while another specimen was presented to the travellers by the missionaries
at Ta-tsien-lou (Oust. N. Arch. Mus. (3) v.p. 143). Here Mr. A. E. Pratt also met with the species,
having previously obtained it at Ichang on the Upper Yangtze.
Abbé David says that M. ruficollis passes along the mountain-regions of China in great numbers
on migration. Although rare at Pekin, it abounds in Sichan, Mongolia, Shen-si, Moupin, and the
other central provinces (David & Oust. Ois. Chine, p. 1-56). Dr. Oustalet {I. c.) mentions a
specimen having been sent to the Paris Museum by Abbé Desgodins from Yer-ka-lo on the Upper
Mekong River.
Though not recorded as yet from any part of Burma, it will doubtless be found occasionally
on some of the frontier hills or on the Pegu plains, and a single example was shown by
Davison to Capt. Kelham as having been obtained at Singapore (Ibis, 1881, p. 510). This was
evidently not the specimen of M. naumanni shot on Singapore Island on the 24th of June, 1877
which is now in the Hume Collection, and is properly identified as that species.
Colonel Godwin-Austen has procured this Ouzel on many occasions in the Naga and Miri
Hills, as well as at Cherra Poonji (J. A. S. B. xxxix. pt. 2, p. 102). Mr. Hume (Str. F. xi. p. 129,
1888) says that he never saw the bird on either the eastern or western hills of Manipur, but
he shot several in the Manipur basin. He.found it solitary and not in parties, like M. atrigularis,
always in the level country, feeding in the open ground, and, in Sylhet and Cachar, always where
heaps of manure had been. thrown down in the fields, about which heaps it was busily foraging.
He continues :—§ 1 have this species from Sadiya and many other places in the Dibrugarh district,
and from Goalpara, and I shot it near Karimgunj in Sylhet, and again further up in the Cachar
district.” Mr. Stuart Baker (Journ. Bomb. N. H. Soc. ix. p. 137) states that he has not met with
M. ruficollis in Northern Cachar. Mr. Cripps says that it is pretty common in the Dibrugarh
district during the cold season.
M. ruficollis seems to occur throughout the Himalayas from Chamba to Assam (cf. Oates,
Faun. Brit. Ind., Birds^jii. p. 130). In the former district Colonel Marshall shot two specimens
in his garden after a snow-storm; but the species is more plentifully observed in the Eastern
Himalayas, where Hodgson has procured it in Nepal, and Mandelli in Native Sikhim, British
Sikhim, and on the borders of Thibet. I t appears never to have been procured in the plains
of India.
I t is said by Severtzow to occur in Eastern Turkestan during migration and winters in the
north-western districts, but is everywhere very rare (Turkest. Jevotn. pp. 65, 119). Dr. Finsch
procured a specimen at the Sassyk-Ala-Kul Lake on the 9th of May (Yerh. z.-b. Ges. Wien,
1879, p. 72).
The Red-throated Ouzel has occurred in Europe a few times, but some of the instances
recorded do not seem to be properly authenticated. An immature bird was shot in Heligoland in
November 1843, and it has been recorded on two occasions in Germany [cf. Martorelli, Ornis,
1901, p. 264).
Prof. Martorelli discusses the relationship of M. ruficollis as regards its interbreeding with
M. atrigularis, and thinks that they may be two phases of one species. The subject is also treated of
by Dr. Pleske and Professor Oustalet in the works above cited. My own opinion is that the two
birds, as also M. fuscata and M. naumanni, are thoroughly distinct species, but that they occasionally
interbreed, like Corvus corone and O. comix.
Adult male. General colour above ashy-grey, the scapulars and wing-coverts like the back,
the crown slightly mottled, with dusky centres to the feathers ; the greater coverts and quills
sepia-brown, with ashy margins to the feathers; centre tail-feathers brown, with ashy margins,
the rest more or less cinnamon-rufous on the inner web, this colour increasing in extent towards the
outermost feathers, which are entirely cinnamon, with the exception of a little brown colour near
the ends ; lores dusky-brown, surrounded by a superciliary streak of vinous-chestnut; sides of face,
cheeks, throat, and fore-neck also vinous-chestnut, the ear-coverts dark ashy; a slightly indicated
malar streak of black spots.; remainder of under surface of body white, the sides of the body and
thighs pale ashy-brown; under tail-coverts orange-cinnamon, concealed by broad white margins to
the feathers; under wing-coverts and axillaries orange-rufous, with hoary-grey margins; quills dusky
below, ashy on the inner webs, which are tinged with orange: “ upper mandible and tip of lower
mandible brown; rest of lower mandible, gape, and margins of upper mandible, except at tip, dull
yellow; tarsi greyish-dusky; feet fleshy-brown; iris hazel” {Hume). Total length 9-5 inches,
culmen 0’85, wing 5*4, tail 3'4, tarsus 1-25.
The adult female resembles the male and has a similar red throat, but it is probably only very
old birds which gain the same plumage as the male; the sides of the body are more distinctly
ashy-grey, and the breast spotted more or less distinctly with ashy. The black malar lines, which are
sometimes lost in the old males, seem never to become quite obsolete in the old females, which have
often black spots on the throat. Although the majority1 of female birds have white throats with
black spots, yet there are so many specimens in the Museum which are entirely red-throated, that it
is impossible to doubt that old females resemble the males.
A female in somewhat worn plumage from Lake Baikal, in the Seebohm Collection, is an adult
bird killed by Dybowski in May. I t has, however, a white throat and cheeks, as well as a whitish