214 MUSCICAPA. 



well defined, and pointing directly forward, so as to 

 separate these birds from the stone- chats*, are yet 

 short, and by no means so strong as in the preced- 

 ing divisions. The wings, as already intimated, are 

 the longest and the most pointed of all the fly- 

 catchers: they generally reach to half or three- 

 quarters the length of the tail, while their typical 

 structure is no less peculiar : the first quill is com- 

 pletely spurious, in other words, it is quite useless 

 for any purposes of flight, and seems intended either 

 to designate the natural situation of these birds in 

 the scale of nature, or to serve as some protection 

 to the base of the next or second quill, which very 

 nearly reaches the end of the third, so that the 

 second and third pen-feathers, which in all the 

 preceding sub-genera are short and graduated, 

 become the longest of all. The tail is rather short, 

 and the termination is not only quite even, but 

 assumes in the middle an inclination to being 

 slightly forked. Such are the typical characters as 

 exhibited by our common Muscicapa grisola and 

 the two other European species. But before we 

 attempt to show in what manner these characters are 

 modified in the extra-European species, we shall 

 figure and describe the Muscicapa albicollis. 



* See Observations on the two families, under the head of 

 Petroica multicolor, Zool. 111. 



