232 EURYLAIMWS. 



their scientific elucidation. The different groups of 

 flycatchers we have hitherto noticed have been 

 small, delicate-shaped birds, seldom equalling the 

 size of the robin, and generally smaller than a wren ; 

 but those we are now come to are of a very different 

 character. Their average size is nearly that of a 

 starling or small thrush. Their shape is thick and 

 robust, and their head and bill enormously large ; 

 their whole aspect, in short, at the first glance, is so 

 different from any other group, that the most un- 

 practised eye would detect, without at first compre- 

 hending, their striking difference from all other 

 birds. So far, therefore, we shall find this pecu- 

 liarity of character a circumstance highly favourable 

 for the investigation of their affinities, because it 

 removes those difficulties which impeded the com- 

 plete illustration of the intricate groups just noticed* 

 And yet, notwithstanding this great dissimilarity in 

 general appearance between the ordinary flycatchers 

 and these birds, a more attentive examination of 

 their structure proves them to be but a race of the 

 same family, essentially possessing the same general 

 structure, yet with some parts enlarged and others 

 reduced; modifications, in short, which obviously 

 indicate peculiar manners, and which tend to ex- 

 hibit, at the same time, a higher developement of 

 the fissirostral type than any we have yet noticed. 

 All the species yet discovered have been found in 

 Tropical Asia, where they represent, in the same 

 latitudes, the todies of the New World. Linna3us 

 and his followers, indeed, placed both in the same 



