IXUS 461 



Ohio in the west. It affects the most thickly wooded districts and 

 especially the cypi'us-swamps. The male has a crest of fine scarlet, 

 but otherwise his plumage is black and white, as is also that of the 

 female. Beside the two species just named Mr. Hargitt {Cat. B. 

 Br. Mus. xviii. pp. 460-480) includes 12 others in the genus, all 

 of smaller size. 



IXUS, incorrectly written Ixos by Temminck, who proposed it 

 in 1825 (Bee. de PI. col. d'Ois. livr. 64) as a generic term for a 

 section of Thrush-like (" Turdo'ide ") birds which he had indicated two 

 yeai's before (oj). cif. livr. 12), and a word used occasionally in 

 English, particularly in regard to a species which he in 1840 

 (Man. d'Orn. iv. p. 608) called /. obscurus, believing it to be new 

 and to be found in Europe. Some writers have been so much 

 puzzled as to the precise application of the term that they have 

 dropped its use, for Temminck made it include forms that are not 

 congeneric, and did not define it until he described the species just 

 mentioned, which has since been identified with the Turdus barbatus 

 of Desfontaines (M6m. Acad. Boy. Sc. 1787, p. 500) discovered by 

 him in Algeria, and not known to occur to the north of the Medi- 

 terranean, while it certainly cannot be placed in the same genus as 

 the bird of Java to which the term was first applied. This last, 

 which has been referred to a genus Hemixus by Dr. Sharpe (Cat. 

 B. Br. Mus. vi. p. 53), should still retain Temminck's title of 

 /. virescens, while his /. obscurus has been rightly referred to the 

 genus Pycnonotus (Bulbul) and now stands as P. barbatus. Though 

 the section " Turdoide " was no doubt meant to be equivalent to the 

 genus which Kuhl called Pycnonotus,^ as Boie vidtnesses (Isis, 1826, 

 p. 973), Temminck expressly states that his genus Ixus contained 

 birds which had not a thickly - feathered back, the eponymic 

 character of Pycnonotus, and therefore the two genera are not 

 identical as some have thought. The so-called "Dusky Ixus," 

 P. barbatus of English authors, is a common bird in parts of Algeria 

 and Morocco where its habits have been observed by several 

 competent ornithologists whose accounts have been conveniently 

 collected by Mr. Dresser (B. Eur. iii. pp. 353-355). A nearly 

 allied species, P. xanthopygius, inhabits Palestine, and a single 

 example of one from the Cape of Good Hope, P. capensis, is said to 

 have strayed to Ireland (Yarrell, Br. B. ed. 4, i. p. 247). 



^ Kulil did not live to publish this name, and Boie is the authority for its 

 bestowal. In their days it was not uncommon for naturalists to ticket a specimen 

 in a museum with a name that, though accessible to a visitor, might not find its 

 way into print for many years. The assertion, unsupported by any evidence, and 

 contradicted by all we know of Kuhl's severely scientific method, that a generic 

 name given by him was published ' ' in some popular Dutch periodical " can 

 only raise a smile. 



