COMMON GREY FLYCATCHER. 53 



effect only of a different age, or of moulting ? The 

 answer to these questions can only be given after 

 an examination of more specimens than we at 

 present possess. One would have thought that no- 

 thing in the structure of a bird, like the Muscicapa 

 grisola, would have been left unnoticed by its in- 

 numerable describers, but we have searched in vain 

 for any particulars as to the form of its wing. It is 

 really surprising that our ornithologists cannot be 

 persuaded to be more full and accurate in their de- 

 scriptions, even when they daily see the actual im- 

 portance it is to their own researches. 



RUFOUS-BELLIED FLYCATCHER. 



Musdpeta rujiventer^ SWAINB. 

 PLATE IV. 



Rufous ; crest, head, and chin, glossy steel-blue ; outer half 

 of the wings, black ; tail, long, cuneated. 



THE most beautiful birds, in the very numerous 

 family of Flycatchers, are those first distinguished 

 by Le Yaillant, and which M. Cuvier subsequently 

 named Mwcipeta. All the South African species 

 have been beautifully figured and accurately de- 

 scribed in the costly work of Le Vaillant ; but the 



