Merula thomassoni Seebohm, Bull. Brit. Orn. Club (1894), 3, 41;
Grant, Ibis (1894), 508; (1895), 445; Sharpe, Hand-List (1903),
4, 120; McGregor and Worcester, Hand-List (1906), 83.
Turdus thomassoni Whitehead, Ibis (1899), 212.
Bul-it, Benguet.
Luzon (Whitehead, McGregor, Mearns).
Adult.--Entire head, neck all round, chin, throat, and chest light
smoky brown, darker on forehead and crown; remainder of plumage
black; some of the feathers at sides of abdomen tipped with white;
under tail-coverts with white shaft-streaks and narrow rusty brown
tips. Bill, legs, and nails yellow. Length of a male, plumage
somewhat worn, 240; wing, 116; tail, 92; culmen from base, 22;
bill from nostril, 14; tarsus, 31. A female, wing, 118; tail, 93;
culmen from base, 24; bill from nostril, 15; tarsus, 33. Even in
adult birds there is some variation in the amount of white on the
under tail-coverts, and rusty brown fringes on the feathers of the
abdomen seem to indicate immaturity. A young male has the head and
neck black instead of chocolate-brown and the feathers of lower breast
and abdomen are liberally marked with rusty brown, this coloring the
shafts of some feathers.