116 ELEMENTS OF ORNITHOLOGY. 
Weaver-bird ef India (Ploceus baya) may be taken as a type, 
form a large family-group of two hundred and eighty-eight 
species. These birds are distributed over Africa and India, 
extending into the Malay Peninsula. They are not very un- 
like Finches, but are of especial interest on account of the 
wonderful nests some of them construct, as will be noticed 
later on *. 
There is a large group of Birds called Flycatchers, which, 
although they are confined to the Old World, yet number 
more than four hundred and five species. Of these we may 
Fig. 125. 

The Red-capped Babbler (Zimelia prleata). 
select the Spotted Flycatcher (Muscicapa griseola) as an example. 
It is one of the most regular of our summer visitants though 
late in its arrival. All these Birds have similar habits, catching 
insects on the wing, and then returning to the perch from which 
they took wing to catch them. 
There is also a very large group of Birds called Babblers, or 
Babbling Thrushes, of not less than three hundred and seventy 
species, more or less, whereof the Red-capped Babbler (Limelia 
pileata) may be taken as a type. It inhabits grassy plains, but 
the group to which it belongs consists mostly of bush-birds, that 
* See below, p. 282. 
