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Show 804 MR. H. SEEBOHM ON SOME ASIATIC THRUSHES. \^uee. lu, panicd by a real coincidence of species, proposed (J. A. S. Beng. xi. p. 460) the name of Turdus modestus as a substitute for Turdus unicolor, "Gould, nee Tickell" apud Blyth. In 1847 Blyth discovered that he had fallen into precisely the same blunder that he had tried to correct in Gould ; for the name T. modestus had already been applied by Eyton, in 1839 (P. Z. S. vii. p. 103), to a different species of Thrush. Blyth accordingly proceeded (J. A. S. Beng. xvi. p. 144) to give a third name, Geocichla dissimilis, to this species. In doing so, however, he further complicated the question by adding to his new name the description of the immature male or female of a new species which he erroneously imagined to be the adult male of T. unicolor, Gould. In 1850 Bonaparte described what he considered to be a new species of Thrush from a skin in the Leyden Museum labelled " Central Asia." He gave it (Consp. Gen. Av. i. p. 273) the name of Turdus pelios, but afterwards, in 1854 (Compt. Rend, xxxviii. p. 5), carelessly identified an Abyssinian Thrush (Turdus icterorhynchus, Pr. Wiirt.) with his description of P. pelios, and needlessly threw doubt on the correctness of the Leyden locality. The skin in the Leyden Museum is undistinguishable from the female or immature male which Blyth described as T. dissimilis. After a lapse of twelve years Jerdon, in his ' Birds of India,' further complicated matters by erroneously identifying T. dissimilis (Blyth) with T. cardis, Temm., including it in his work (i. p. 521) as Tur-dulus cardis (Temm.). The following year Sclater described (Ibis, 1863, p. 196) a new species of Thrush from Amoy as Turdus hortulorum, the male (doubtless immature) and female of which are undistinguishable from T. dissimilis (Blyth). Seven years later Cabanis received a Thrush from Dr. Dybowsky, collected in the valley of the Amoor (likewise undistinguishable from T. dissimilis (Blyth), and identified it with T. pelios, Bonap., pointing out (Journ. Orn. 1870, p. 238) the error into which Bonaparte afterwards fell. Further complications now followed thick and fast. In 1871 Hume described a new Thrush from Assam (Ibis, p. 411) as Geocichla tricolor. In 1873 Swinhoe described a new Thrush from Cheefoo (Ann. Nat. Hist. ser. 4, vol. xii. p. 374) as Turdus camp-belli. In the following year, forgetting that he had described it in the 'Annals,' he redescribed the same skin in 'The Ibis' (1874, p. 444, pi. xiv.) as Turdus chrysopleurus. M y first attempt to unravel this complicated tangle of facts was to draw the inference that whereas in the nearly allied species T. cardis, Temm., T. obscurus, Gmel., T. pallidus, Gmel., and T. unicolor, Tick,, the females and immature males have streaks or spots on the throat, which disappear in the fully adult male, it was • highly probable that the fully adult male of T. dissimilis, Blyth, would also have an unspotted throat. Having arrived at this conclusion, it was an easy step to identify T. campbelli, Swinh., or T. tricolor (Hume), as the fully adult male. Hume's description |