tgia.] Names of certain Birds. 149 



stand, but SLarpe (Cat. B. M.), Legge {' Birds of Ceylon '), 

 and Dr. Hartert (Vog. pal. F.) all put tliis little grou}) into 

 the genus Muscicapa. Now Muscicapa hyperijthra cannot be 

 used for this bird, as this association has ah'eady been used 

 by Blyth (J. A. S. B. xi. 1842, p. 885,) for quite a different 

 bird — one of the Blue Flycatchers — known as Cyornis 

 hyperythrus. Those who would put these Flycatchers in the 

 genus Muscicapa must fintl a new name for this bird ; those 

 who do not, can use hyperythra — a good instance, and not the 

 only one, of a well-nigh insuperable difficulty which must be 

 overcome ere we reach the millennium in uniformity of 

 nomenclature. 



5. The Eastern Sky-Lark. — In the Journal f. Ornith. 

 of 1903 p. 149, Ehmcke described this Sky-Lark, which has 

 an enormous breeding-range in western Siberia and Tur- 

 kestan and an equally vast winter range in southern Asia, as 

 Alauda cinerea, and a year later in the same publication 

 changed the name to cinerascens, as Alauda cinerea was 

 preoccupied in Gmelin's Syst. Nat. As Alauda arvensis 

 cinerascens this has crept into recent literature and lists. 

 Now in 1844, Hodgson used the name dulcivox in Gray's 

 Zool. Misc. (p. 84) for an Indian Sky-Lark without giving- 

 any description, and consequently his name is a nomen nudum. 

 Brooks (' Stray Feathers, ' Dec. 1873^ pp. 484-5) used dulcivox 

 to describe " the only Indian Sky-Lark having a general 

 resemblance to the European Alauda arvensis'^ : in other 

 words he described, and well described, the Sky-Lark of the 

 arvensis group, which is common enough in the plains of 

 India in winter. He goes on to say it is monticolous in 

 summer, and calls it "a well marked Alpine Lark.'^ In 

 'The Ibis,' 1892, p. 61, he says: "the large Lark of the 

 Punjab is certainly not ^1. arvensis, and A. dulcivox sliould 

 be kept distinct.^' So there is no doubt at jill to what Sky- 

 Lark Brooks referred. Dr. Hartert (Vog. pal. F. p. 247) 

 against Alauda didcivox Brooks puts the type-locality as 

 "Alpine Region of North India." Now Brooks never said 

 that this bird came from and bred in the Alpine regions of 



