148 



LONG-TAILED GRAKLK, 



Lamprotornis longicanda, SWAINS. 

 PLATE VII. 



Metallic green head, glossed with violet-brown; tail very 

 long, graduated, glossed with purple, and banded with nu- 

 merous dark lines. 



Le Vert-dore', Le Vaill, Ois. tfAfiique, ii. PI. 87, p. 146. 

 PI. Enl. 220. Merula longicanda, Brisson Orn. ii. p. 313. 

 Turdus aeneus, Gmelin, Auctorum. 



IN a group of birds so difficult to determine as the 

 present, it becomes more particularly desirable that 

 the name of each should not only be appropriate, 

 but characteristic of that particular quality or cir- 

 cumstance which distinguishes each species. All 

 are splendid, shining, and coppery ; and, therefore, 

 such names as splendens, miens, emeus, chalyleus, &c 

 being applicable to all, become, in fact, of no use 

 as specific distinctions. With all our desire to 

 preserve standard names, we really think it will be 

 advantageous to science that future ornithologists, 

 who may have the powei of determining what the 

 two first of these species really are, should impose 

 upon them more appropriate names than those they 

 now bear in our systems. In regard to the third, 

 the Turdus ccneus of Linnaeus, the prior denomina- 

 tion given to it so justly by Brisson, who was its 



