FL ORICA N—FL YCA TCHER 273 



FLORICAN or FLORIKEN/ the Anglo-Indian name for the 

 smaller Bustards, the origin of which neither Jerdon {B. Ind. ii. 

 p. 625) nor Yule {Hobson Johson, p. 270) can trace. The latter 

 shews that it was used in 1780 (Munro, Narrative, p. 199), and 

 says " it looks like Dutch " ; but from analogy a Portuguese deriva- 

 tion would seem more likely. 



FLOWER-PECKER, the name given by Indian ornithologists 

 to species of the genus Dic^UM and others supposed to be allied to 

 it (c/. Jerdon, B. Ind. i. pp. 373-378 ; Gates, Fauna Br. Ind. Birds, 

 ii. pp. 376-386). 



FLUSHER, said by Ray in 1674 {Coll. Engl. Words, p. 83) to 

 be a name given in Yorkshire to the Butcher-BIRD or Red-backed 

 Shrike ; but he probably should have written " Flesher " — that 

 being a common North-country word for butcher. 



FLYCATCHER, a name introduced in ornithology by Ray, 

 being a translation of the Muscicapa of older authors, and applied 

 by Pennant to an extremely common English bird, the M. grisola of 

 Linnaeus. It has since been used in a general and very vague way 

 for a great many small birds from all parts of the world, which 

 have the habit of catching flies on the wing, and thus ornithologists 

 who have trusted too much to this characteristic and to certain 

 merely superficial correlations of structure, especially those exhibited 

 by a broad and rather flat bill and a gape beset by strong hairs or 

 bristles, have associated under the title of Miiscicapidse an exceed- 

 ingly heterogeneous assemblage of forms that, though much reduced 

 in number by later systematists, has scarcely yet been sufficiently 

 revised. Great advance has been made, however, in establishing 

 as independent Families the Todidfe (Tody) and Eurylxmidse 

 (Broadbill), as well as in excluding from it various members 

 of the Cotingidse (Chatterer), Tyrannidx, Fireonidx, Mniotiltidx 

 (American Warbler), and perhaps others, which had been placed 

 within its limits. These steps have left the Muscicapidse a purely 

 Old- World Family of the Order Passeres, and the chief difficulty 

 now seems to lie in separating it from Campephaga, with its rela- 

 tions, and from the Laniidx (Shrike). Every ornithologist must own 

 that its precise definition is at present almost imjDossible, and must 

 await that truer knowledge which comes of investigating structural 

 characters more deeply seated than any aff"orded by the epidermis. 

 But here want of space forbids the pursuit of this kind of enquiry, 



^ Some form of this word, variously spelt by authors, doubtless gave rise to 

 " Flercher," which Latham in 1787 said {Syn. B. Suppl. p. 229) was used in 

 India "by some of the English," and is probably due to a misprint or wrong 

 reading. Jerdon says that he was once informed that the Little Bustard was 

 " sometimes called Flandcrkin " ; but I am not able to find such a name for it. 

 Way Florican, after all, arise from a mispronunciation of Feancolin ? 



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