292 FRENCH PIE—FRIAR-BIRD 
F. pictus. 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, /. levaillanti, the 
“Redwing” of English settlers, being especially numerous. They 
are all attractive to sportsmen. 
FRENCH PIE, given by Montagu in 1802 (Orn. Dict.) as a 
local name of Lanius excubitor (SHRIKE), but much more commonly 
applied to one or other of the Pied WoopprEcKERS, 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 (Synops. B. Suppl. i. 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. NV. South Wales, p. 190), who also 
figured it. That it was no BEE-EATER, but one of the Meliphagide 
(HONEY-EATER), became in time apparent, and Vigors and Horsfield 
(Trans. Linn. Soc. xv. p. 323) founded for it a new genus, J’ropido- 
rhynchus, 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 Mr. Wallace (Proc. Zool. Soc. 
1863, p. 31, and Malay Archipelago, ti. p. 151) as a new species, 
Tropidorhynchus bourouensis, 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 
1 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. 
2 In this number is not included the Merops monachus of Latham (Ind. Orn. 
Suppl. p. 84), 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. Suppl. ii. p. 155). 
