11^8 Brewster, IVo/es on Certain Flycatchers. f^'rii 



Muscicapa acadica of Gmelin (Syst. Nat., I, 1788, p. 947) was 

 based on the "Lesser-Crested Flycatcher" of Pennant (Arctic 

 Zoology, II, 1785, p. 386, n. 268) and the former author's 

 diagnosis is an almost literal translation into Latin of the latter's 

 description which is as follows : — 



"268. Lesser-Crested. Fl. With a small backward crest : 

 head, neck, and back, of a dirty light cinereous green : breast and 

 belly whitish, tinged with yellow : wings and tail dusky ; coverts 

 crossed with two bars of white ; secondaries edged with white : 

 legs black. Place. Inhabits Nova Scotia. — Capt. Davies^ 



This characterization is obviously too vague and general to be 

 determinable. It fits E. traillii quite as well as E. acadicus, and 

 it can be applied without much violence to autumnal specimens 

 of E. minhuHs. Of course doubts on this score have been long 

 since acknowledged and expressed ; nor would they alone at this 

 late day justify any serious question of the established appli- 

 cation of the name acadica — an application which has become 

 fixed and current by a certain process of exclusion and by long 

 usage — were it not that we now know definitely what was only 

 half suspected by the ornithologists of the past generation, viz., 

 that the so-called " Acadian Flycatcher " is not a bird of 

 " Acadia " at all. On the contrary, its normal range along the 

 Atlantic seaboard does not extend to the northward of Long 

 Island, although there are, of course, two or three records of its 

 chance occurrence in southern New England. This being the 

 case it would seem to be no longer possible to maintain that this 

 southern Empidonax could have been the original Muscicapa 

 acadica^ for both Pennant and Gmelin name only Nova Scotia as 

 the habitat of their bird, and the mention by the former of the 

 person — Captain Davies, — from whom apparently he received 

 his specimen, gives his statement as to its origin a certain 

 definiteness which allays any suspicion that a mistake may have 

 been made on this point. 



These considerations would seem to make it imperative to 

 select another name for the bird which has been so long called 

 Empidonax acadicns. I'he earliest name available is apparentlv 

 Platyrhynchos virescensN\€\\\o\. (Nouv. Diet. d'Hist. Nat., XXVII, 

 18 1 8, 22) based on Wilson and hence unmistakably referable 



