Sciences at Stockholm that a male had been killed in Jemt-
land, one of the Swedish provinces, in November, 1837.
The description of this species was first given by Pallas,
m his great work on the zoology of Russia, from the papers
of J . G. Gmelin, who met with it at Krasnojark on the
Jenisei, and noticed the peculiar feature of its possessing
fourteen tail-feathers. Steller also found it on the eastern
shores of Lake Baikal. Herr Radde seems to he the only
other Siberian traveller who has mentioned it. On the
Tarei-noor he shot three, two males and a female, apparently
making their journey northward, in the spring of the year
Mr. Swinhoe states that it is found in China generally, and
also m Formosa, while several specimens have been’ sent
from Japan. Mr. Gould has received an example from
Manilla, which, if obtained there, indicates the most southern
point yet known to be reached by this bird.
Of the habits of this species but little is known. Tern-
minck, from information supplied to him by the Dutch
travellers in Japan, states that it inhabits high mountains.
Mr. Swinhoe says (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1863, p. 279) that at
Amoy in China, where it is an extremely rare visitant, it
only appears in spring, when the banyan-berries are ripe.
Mr. Tomes, in his very able paper, before mentioned, says
that its digestive organs differ somewhat from those of other
British Thrushes m being strictly adapted to a diet of
insects, and it is worthy of remark that several of the examples
which have been obtained in Europe were flushed
from the ground, where among dead leaves they seem to
have been searching for insect-food. This circumstance
coupled with their mottled plumage and their large wings,'
las m some instances led to their having been mistaken°at
the time for Woodcocks. The form of the wing and the
development of the breast-bone in White’s Thrush indicate,
as Mr. Tomes has observed, a bird possessing great powers
ot flight and essentially migratory habits. Nothing is known
of its mode of nidification or the colour of its eggs. Its
flight is said to be very undulating, and its call-note like
that of other Thrushes.
Very much confusion lias long prevailed with respect to
this bird and several others more or less nearly approaching
it in appearance, which by some ornithologists are regarded
as forming a genus distinct from Turdus and called Oreo-
cincla, so that a few words on this subject may not be amiss.
It lias already been said that White’s Thrush, Turdus
varius, Pallas, was by its first describer noticed to be possessed
of fourteen tail-feathers—a number very unusual
among birds of its Order. But the same peculiarity is
shared by a second species closely resembling it at first
sight. This is from Java, and was described by Horsfield
iii a paper read before the Linnean Society in 1820 (Trans.
Linn. Soc. xiii. p. 149) under the title of T. varius, which
name being preoccupied since 1811 by Pallas for the northern
bird, Bonaparte and Prof. Sundevall have respectively and
simultaneously proposed to be altered to Oreocincla liors-
jieldi (Rev. de Zool. May, 1857, p. 205) and 0. malayana
(Journ. fiir Orn. May, 1857, p. 161). But the Javan
species can unfailingly be distinguished from T. varius,
Pallas, by the rounded form of the wing, in which the second
primary is considerably shorter than the sixth, and all the
quill-feathers are much broader, while T. varius, Pallas, has
the feathers narrower and the second primary considerably
longer than the sixth. All the other allied species, like
ordinary Thrushes, have but twelve tail-feathers, and this
serves at once to distinguish them, though several of them
have mottled hacks, and two at least may easily be confounded.
These are the Indian T. dauma and the South-
Australian T. lunulatus, hut the relative length of the
primaries again furnishes the means Of separating them.
In the former the second quill is some bit longer than the
sixth, while in the latter the second is slightly but decidedly
shorter than the sixth. Another difference may be also
found in the colour of the ta i l : in T. dauma the second,
third and fourth pairs of rectrices (particularly the third) are
much darker than the two middle p a irs; while in T. lunulatus
the second, third and fourth pairs are not very much
darker than the two middle pairs, and are more or less obso