Page:The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma (Birds Vol 2).djvu/162

148 whitish. After the autumn moult the lower parts are fringed with white, and some of the feathers of the head with black.

Female. Upper plumage brown, each feather with a blackish shaft-streak and a subterminal dark bar with a pale tip ; upper tail-coverts chestnut, similarly barred and tipped ; tail chestnut, the middle pair of feathers brown on their terminal half ; lower plumage dull white, suffused with rufous everywhere except on the throat, each feather with a wavy interrupted cross-bar near the tip ; under tail- and wing-coverts and the axillaries chestnut with indistinct white tips.

Bill dusky, lower mandible yellow at base ; iris brown ; legs, feet, and claws black (Scully}.

Length about 7'5 ; tail 2'5; wing 4'7 ; tarsus 1*1; bill from gape 1-1.

Distribution. Occurs in Gilgit at the autumn migration, the birds met with in this locality being chiefly young. Stoliczka obtained a specimen, probably of this species, near Dras. Blanford records this species from the banks of the Irrawaddy, near Ava, in Upper Burma.

This Rock-Thrush has an extensive range from Northern Africa and Southern Europe through Asia to China. Its migration appears to be of very limited extent.

Genus TURDUS, Linn., 1766.

The genus Turdus contains those Thrushes in which the sexes are alike and the under wing-coverts and axillaries of one colour. The three Indian species of this genus are found in Europe (and in England) and are among the best known birds of the tribe.

In Turdus both the wing and tail are long, and the latter is slightly graduated ; the bill is small, and there is no pattern on the underside of the wing.

The Thrushes of this genus are good songsters ; they are found in well-wooded country; they make cup- shaped nests in trees, using mud in the construction, and they feed largely on berries and fruit.

Key to the Species.

1 axillaries white. a. urown ana mantle Drown T. viscivorus, p. 1< b' '. Crown blue, mantle rufous T. pilaris, p. 150. ?. Under wing-coverts and axillaries rufous T. iliaeiis, p. 150. a. Under wing-coverts and axillaries white. a. Crown and mantle brown T. viscivorus, p. 148.

695. Turdus viscivorus. The Missel- Thrush.

Turdus viscivorus, Linn. Syst. Nat. i, p. 291 (1766) ; Blyth, Cat. p. 160 ; Horsf. $ M. Cat. i, p. 194 ; Hume, Cat. no. 368 ; Seebohm, Cat. B. M. v, p. 194 ; Biddulph, Ibis, 1881, p. 53 ; Scully, Ibis. 1881, p. 439 ; Gates in Hume's N. $ E. 2nd ed, ii, p, 106,