680 OX-BIRD—OX-PECKER 
in great detail, has given his reasons (Cat. B. Brit. Mus. ii. pp. 291-309 ; 
and Ornith. Miscell. i. pp. 269-298 ; ii. pp. 1-21) for acknowledging 
four “subspecies” of 4. flammeus, as well as five other species. Of 
these last, 4. tenebricosus is peculiar to Australia, while 4. nove- 
hollandiw inhabits also New Guinea, and has a “subspecies,” 4. 
castanops, found only in Tasmania ; a third, 4. candidus, has a wide 
range from Fiji and northern Australia through the Philippines 
and Formosa to China, Burma and India; a fourth, 4. capensis, is 
peculiar to South Africa ; while 4. thomensis is said to be confined 
to the African island of St. Thomas. There is also the extinct A. 
sauzier’ of Mauritius (Trans. Zool. Soc. xiii. p. 286), and to these will 
perhaps have to be added a species from New Britain, described by 
Count T. Salvadori as Striz aurantia, though it may prove on further 
investigation not to be an Alucine Owl at all. 
OX-BIRD, a common name for the DUNLIN, and in connexion 
therewith Mr. Harting, in the Introduction (p. xvii.) to Rodd’s Birds 
of Cornwall, reasonably refers OXEN-AND-KINE, by which name 
some apparently small wildfowl were of old times known in the 
west country (cf. Carew, Survey of Cornwall, fol. 35, and a curious 
paper printed in the Camden Miscellany,’ iv. pp. 10, 26). 
OX-EYE seems once to have been synonymous with Ox-BIRD, 
but is now only known as a local name for the Great TrrmousE 
(of. Sw. Talgoxe = fat ox).? 
OX-PECKER, a rendering of the French Pique-beuf, bestowed 
on a small, dull-coloured bird discovered by Adanson in Senegal, 
, the BDuphaga africana of Linnzeus, which has 
been almost invariably referred to the Family 
s Sturnide (STARLING), chiefly, it would seem, 
= because it flies in flocks, and settles on the 
- back of cattle in search of the bots or ticks 
with which they are infested. Though the 
animals are at first alarmed at the visitation, 
OxproKer. they soon get over the fright, regarding, it is 
Sse ainsi said, with evident pleasure the way in which 
the birds creep about them and rid them of the pests. A second 
1 The Editor of this, Mr. W. D. Cooper, suggests that the birds were Ruffs and 
Reeves, but there is no evidence that those birds were ever to be had in Devon or 
Cornwall ; however, Mr. C. Swainson (Prov. Names Br. B. p. 195) accepts the 
suggestion as if it were a fact. Mr. Sclater (List Vert. Anim. Gardens of the 
Zool. Soc. 18838, p. 246) applies ‘‘Ox-bird” to Textor albirostris or alecto, one of 
the WEAVER-BIRDs. 
2 A copy of Belon’s Portraits d’ Oyseauxr (1557) in the Public Library of the 
University of Cambridge (M. 15. 43) has the English names of many of the birds 
written in an ancient hand. To the figure of Himantopus (Sritr) the name 
Ox-eye is applied. 
