538 oberholser: pycnonotine family of passeriformes 



plumage and heavily plumed nostrils, do, at first glance, very 

 much resemble the drongos (family Dicruridae) ; but the posses- 

 sion of twelve instead of ten rectrices definitely excludes them 

 from that group. Since, as above indicated, the birds now com- 

 prised in the genus Irena Horsfield are not properly referable to 

 the Pycnonotidae or to any other recognized family, it becomes 

 necessary to create for them a new group, to be called 



Irenidae, fam. nov. 



Diagnosis. — Readily differentiated from the Pycnonotidae by 

 the strongly corvine bill and the densely and entirely feathered 

 nostrils and nasal fossae. 



Family characters. — Bill thick and heavy, but somewhat com- 

 pressed, the culmen rather sharply ridged, the gonys rounded; 

 terminal portion of maxillar tomia notched; mental apex oppo- 

 site anterior end of nasal fossae; nostrils small and subrounded, 

 situated in the anterior end of nasal fossae, and entirely and 

 thickly covered with closely appressed antrorse feathers and 

 bristles; head completely feathered; nuchal hairs present and of 

 moderate length ; tail of twelve stifhsh feathers, slightly rounded, 

 and making up nearly half the total length of bird; wings rather 

 long and rounded; tertials short; first (outermost) primary 

 spurious, but more than one-half the length of second; feet rather 

 small, the claws moderately developed; tarsi short, scutellate, 

 but sometimes rather indistinctly so. 



Type genus. — Irena Horsfield. 



Remarks. — The birds of this new family comprise eight cur- 

 rent species, two of which are, however, but subspecies, and an 

 additional new subspecies, hereinafter described. Authors have 

 hitherto included all these in the single genus Irena, but struc- 

 tural differences necessitate the division of this into two genera, 

 as follows: 



Irena Horsfield 



Irena Horsfield, Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond., ser. 1, XIII, pt. 1, 

 May, 1821, p. 153 (type by monotypy, Coracias puella Latham). 



