Grand Cayman Thrush

Charles B. Cory described them as common in 1886 but shortly after its discovery, it became a favorite object for bird collectors. Twenty-one specimens were collected on four occasions in total. The first four specimens were taken in August 1886. Another three were killed in 1892 and one female was obtained in 1896. Finally, thirteen specimens were shot between April and July 1916 by bird collector W. W. Brown, Jr. Suddenly this bird was vanished and several surveys to find this species again have failed until zoologist C. Bernard Lewis observed one individual north of East End in the eastern of Grand Cayman in the summer of 1938. This was the last reliable report of a living Grand Cayman thrush. Causes of its extinction were most likely deforestation and the destroying of its habitat by hurricanes between 1932 and 1944. Stuffed specimens can be seen in the following museums: six in the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, one in the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, two in the American Museum of Natural History in New York, one in the Natural History Museum of Berlin, seven in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, one in the Natural History Museum in London, one in the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. and one in the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.