The true flycatchers* 319 



Avi-fauna. Some have been included by mistake, while others 

 no have doubt been recorded on evidence which should have 

 secured their suppression. The " Gold-vented Thrush," as 

 it has been called for so many years in works on British Orni- 

 thology, belongs to a group of birds of the most stay-at-home 

 character, and the nearest inhabitant to our shores is the 

 Bulbul of Algeria, Pyaionotus ba?'batus, which is not one of 

 the gold-vented section of the genus. A specimen of a 

 Pycnonotus is said to have been shot near Waterford in 

 January, 1838, by Dr. R. Burkitt, and skinned by him. It 

 turns out to be the Bulbul of South Africa, P. capensis, one of 

 the most restricted of all the species in its range, being in fact 

 confined to the Cape Colony below the Karroo country. There 

 is not the slightest probability of the bird's having migrated 

 from the Cape to Ireland, and the supposition that it might 

 have been an escaped specimen might have been entertained 

 but for the fact that an " Eagle-Owl " shot in Ireland by the 

 same gentleman, turned out to be another South African 

 species, viz., Bubo maculosus. There seems, therefore, to be 

 some mistake connected with the occurrence of these African 

 species in Ireland, and the birds had better be dropped out 

 of the British List altogether. 



THE FLYCATCHERS. FAMILY MUSCICAPID^E. 



The Flycatchers evince their affinity with the Thrushes by 

 the mottled character of the young birds, but they have 

 natter and broader bills, and are remarkable for the number 

 and strength of their rictal bristles, and for having the nostrils 

 always more or less covered with hairs ; the culmen is generally 

 provided with a keel. 



They are entirely birds of the Old World, and are distributed 

 over all four regions, being found even in the Pacific Islands. 

 The so-called " Flycatchers " of America are the Tyrant-birds, 

 and belong to a totally different family, Tyrannida. 



THE TRUE FLYCATCHERS. GENUS MUSCICAPA. 

 Musciazfia, Linn., Syst. Nat., i., p. 324 (1766). 

 Type, M. grisola (Linn.). 

 The bill in this genus is only moderately broadened, in com- 



