5 2 Elliot on the Genus Pitta. [jau. 



In my 'Monograph,' published in 1863, I restricted the term 

 Pitta to those birds with the long, pointed tails, and adopted for 

 the short- nearly square-tailed species the term Brachyurus, 

 Thunberg (Vet. Akad. Handl. 1821, p. 370). This, however, 

 has been twice previously employed in zoology, first by Latreille 

 in 1802 for a genus of Crustacea, and again in 1814 by Fischer for 

 one of mammals, and cannot, therefore, according to the princi- 

 ples adopted by naturalists at the present day, be again employed 

 in ornithology. In 1859 Reichenbach in his 'Systema Avium,' 

 pi. Hi, separated the fourth species in Vieillot's genus, le 

 Merle de la Guiane, from the rest, and made it the type of a 

 new genus Eucichla, thus leaving the short-tailed birds to repre- 

 sent Vieillot's genus Pitta, of which the type, if we take the first 

 species mentioned by Buftbn, would be that on plate 89, the 

 Merle des Philippines (P. sordida Mull.) , and not P. brachyura 

 as given by Sclater (Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus., XIV, 1888, p. 413), 

 which is not mentioned at all by Buffon in his work, the Merle 

 de Bengale, as figured on Plate 258, being a Moluccan and not an 

 Indian species. 



If, therefore, the Pittidae are to be divided into three genera, 

 we should have Anthocincla with A. phayrei as its type, 

 Pitta, with P. sordida for its type, comprising all the birds 

 with very short, slightly rounded rectrices, and Eiccichla with 

 P. guaiana as type, including the species with rather elon- 

 gated, pointed tails. Not sufficient is known at present of the 

 anatomy of Coracopitta to warrant its reception into Pittidae, the 

 probability being that it belongs to a different family. 



