318 Viscount Walden on the Muscicapa melanictera. 



naire ' he introduced Le Cap Negre as the first species of the 

 genus, associating it with Le Quadricolor, Le Vaillant {Motacilla 

 seylonka, Gm., ^. quadricolor , Vieill.). He apparently had 

 no better or other reason for thus uniting under the same 

 genus these two dissimilar forms, than the fact that the plates 

 representing the two birds succeeded one another in Le Vail- 

 lant's great work. Drapiez followed suit ; for while giving our 

 bird another specific name, nigricapilla, he referred it to Hors- 

 field's genus lora, which was founded on the Javan form of 

 /. typhia {I. scapularis, Horsf.) . In the Catalogue of the Cal- 

 cutta Museum, Mr. Blyth removed jE. atricapilla, Vieill., to 

 the genus Pycnonotus, Kuhl ; but later, in the addenda to Ap- 

 pendix IL of that Catalogue, he suggested that Drapiez^s specific 

 title would have to stand in preference to Vieillot's, as the 

 Muscicapa atricapilla, Vieill.* (Sonnerat's Gobe-mouche a tete 

 noire de la Chine), was also a Pycnonotus. If it were necessary, 

 upon the grounds of priority alone, to decide the point of pre- 

 cedence, this last name, instead of having to be preferred, would 

 have to give way, as it was published in 1818, two years later 

 than that of jE. atricapilla, Vieill. But the two species are 

 geuerically separable, and the priority of their specific names 

 cannot come into conflict, M. atricapilla, Vieill., belonging to 

 the group of which Muscicapa hcemorrhusa, Gm., is the type, 

 while j3i. atricapilla, Vieill., belongs to the same genus as Tur- 

 dus dispar, Horsf., and Brachypus rubineus, Jerd., — the first being 

 the type of Brachypus, Sw., the last of Rubigula, Blyth. How- 

 ever, in framing his ' Catalogue of Ceylon Birds,^ Kclaart 

 adopted Drapiez^s specific title, introducing R, gularis (Gould) 

 into the list as an additional species. 



In 1835, under the name of Brachypus gularis, Mr. Gould 

 described a bird said to be from Travancore. The description 



* This species has been figured in the ' U. S. Japan Exp.' (vol. ii. p. 

 241, pi. 6, Orn.) under the title oi Ixos hcemorrhous (Gm.), Mr. Cassin 

 having regarded it as the true Muscicapa hcemorrhusa, Gm. Gmelin's 

 species, however, was based upon the " Red-vented Flycatcher" of 

 Brown's ' Illustrations,' which comes from Ceylon. An extensive series 

 of specimens of this species is contained in the collection I have just 

 received. They in no way differ from Malabar and South Indian examples. 



