520 NOTES. 



As Mr. Brooks says, we must, I apprehend, adopt Mr. Gould's 

 name leucopsis (P. Z. S., 1837, 78) for this species. 



Mr. Hodgson's description (Asiatic Researches, XIX., 191, 

 3836) runs as follows : — 



<( Motacilla ; Proper, Species, new ; Alboides, nobis. 



" The oriental analogue of Alba, cui simill. ; but clearly distin- 

 guishable by its white throat, its completely black neck, and the 

 greater blanching of its wings, which, when closed, show nothing 

 but white, except on the tertials. 



" Colour and size of Mature Male.— Forehead, cheeks, and 

 throat, white, divided by a narrow black line from the gape ; 

 back of the head, with the whole neck, breast, shoulders, body 

 above, and eight central tail-feathers, jetty ; four lateral caudals, 

 with the body below and greatest portion of the closed wing, 

 white ; quills, black internally, and opertly so on the tertials, 

 which, however, have very broad margins of white • bill and legs, 

 jet ; iris, brown ; eight inches long by 11*5 wide, and less loz. 

 in weight ; tail, 3*75 ; tarsus, 0*94 ; central toe, 0*56 ; hind, 0*31 ; 

 its claw, 0*18 ; wings, 2*5 inches short of tail. Amidst all the 

 changes of plumage to which this species is liable, I still think, 

 I may safely say, that the female (like the young) is slaty 

 above, and white below, with a black gorget on the breast, and 

 a blackish zone round the cheeks ; wings, mostly black brown, 

 with a narrow white edging." 



Following Jerdon and Blyth, we in India generally apply 

 the generic term Venilia to the Brown and Ruddy Woodpeckers, 

 " pyrrhotis," Blyth, and (i porphyromelas," Boie. 



Salvadori, Cabanis and other purists apply Cabanis' generic 

 name Lepocestes. 



Mr. Grray, as I think correctly, and certainly in strict accor- 

 dance with the Code, adopts Bonaparte's name Blythipicus, and 

 we must, it seems to me, follow him. 



The names stand in this order : — 



Venilia. — Bonaparte, 1850, but not Duponch of 1829. 



Blythipicus. — Bonaparte, 1854. 



Pyrrhopicus } Mal harbe, 1861. 



Flinthopicus J ' 



§&£? }Calanis, 1863. 



The purists reject Blythipicus, a capital name in my opinion, 

 on the ground forsooth that it is barbarous, as if the whole of 

 us, at any rate of the Teutonic and Celtic stocks, were not bar- 

 barians ourselves. 



The Code affords no pretence, even for rejecting Blythipicus. 



