292 FRENCH PIE— FRIAR-BIRD 



F. pidus. Specimens from Assam are said to be specifically 

 identical with those from Cyprus. More than forty species of the 

 genus (the several subdivisions of which may be questioned) have 

 been described, a number probably far in excess of those that 

 exist ; but still there are undeniably a good many — most of them 

 belonging to the Ethiopian Region, and no fewer than ten being 

 found within the limits of the Cape Colony, F. levaillantl, the 

 "Redwing" of English settlers, being especially numerous. They 

 are all attractive to sportsmen. 



FRENCH PIE, given by Montagu in 1802 {Orn. Did.) as a 

 local name of Lanius excubitor (Shrike), but much more commonly 

 applied to one or other of the Pied Woodpeckers, Dendrocopus 

 major especially. 



FRIAR -BIRD, an Australian species, so called from early 

 colonial days, and not inaptly, considering its bare head, the 

 semblance of a hood about its shoulders, formed by a ruff" of soft 

 recurved feathers, and the sad hue of its plumage. According to 

 Latham {Syiiops. B. Suppl. ii. p. 151) it was first brought to Eng- 

 land by Banks, who returned with Cook in 1771, but it was not 

 described until 1790, when it received the name of Merops corni- 

 culatus from Latham (Ind. Orn. i. p. 276), and "Knob-fronted Bee- 

 Eater" from John White {Voy. N. South Wales, p. 190), Avho also 

 figured it. That it Avas no Bee-eater, but one of the Meliphagidx 

 (Honey-eater), became in time apparent, and Vigors and Horsfield 

 (Trans. Linn. Soc. xv. p. 323) founded for it a new genus, Tropido- 

 rhyndms, not knowing that Vieillot had anticipated them in 1816 

 {Nouv. Anal. p. 47) by the establishment of Philemon with a species 

 strictly congeneric as its type. This is the " Polochion " of Mont- 

 beillard (Hist. Nat. Ois. vi. p. 477) found by Commerson^ in Bouru, 

 one of the Moluccas, and hence named by Gmelin Merops moluccensis. 

 It was subsequently redescribed by Mi\ Wallace {Proc. Zool. Soc. 

 1863, p. 31, and Malay Archifelago, ii. p. 151) as a new species, 

 Tropidorhyndius hourouensis, and mention of it must be elsewhere 

 made (Mimicry). Dr. Gadow in 1884 {Cat. B. Br. Mus. ix. pp. 

 269-281) recognized 16 species, with two subspecies, of the genus 

 Philemon, to which another has since been added by Mr. E. P. 

 Ramsay, making, according to the latter's views, six- which inhabit 



^ Commerson had said that the word Polochion, which expressed the cry and 

 was the name of the bird, signified " baisons-nous," and hence proposed to call it 

 Philemon or Philedon. Vieillot, as above stated, adopted the one, Cuvier, a year 

 later, the other. 



^ In this number is not included the Merops monachus of Latham (Ind. Orn. 

 Suppl. p. 34), for that is the young of Philemon corniculatus ; but it is in con- 

 nexion with this supposed species that the name ' ' Friar " first appears (Synops. 

 B. Sii2'>pl. ii. p. 155). 



