254 A NOTE ON THE GENERA SCH@NICOLA AND CATRISCUS. 
very exceptional circumstances, acquired by human beings, 
is normal and inherent in the great majority of winged birds. 
But it varies very greatly in potency in different families 
and genera, and while in some it operates almost wholly to 
neutralize the attraction of gravity, in others it only slightly 
diminishes the tension of this. 
This power is directly connected with what we may call, even 
in a bird, the mind principle, and is liable to be suspended by any 
sudden shock or fright, which for the moment checks the out- 
going of will power in that direction. 
This explanation of much that has long puzzled us in connec- 
tion with the flight of birds, is not an hypothesis, but a fact ; 
but as I am not in a position to give that demonstration of it, 
which I am well aware physical science must insist on before 
accepting anything as a fact, I only ask my readers to treat it 
as a hvpothesis, and test how far it systematizes and explains 
the many hitherto inexplicable facts connected with the flight 
of birds. 
A. 0. H. 
A Aote on the Genera Schenicola and Catrisens. By 
R. Bowdler Sharpe, HLS. H.A.S., ke, Department 
of Zoology, British Museum. 
(Reprint from the P. Z. 8., November 1881.) 
DurinG the last two years a great deal of interest has been 
shown in India with respect to Jerdon’s Schwnicola platyura, 
a little Reedbird, which was described by him as 7imalia 
platyura (Madr. Journ., xiii, p. 170), and was afterwards 
made the type of the genus Schenicola by Blyth (J. A. S., 
Beng., XXXiii., p. 374). The typical specimen was lost; and 
the bird remained unidentified for years, merely receiving a 
short notice, in 1863, from Jerdon in his “ Birds of of India” (ii., 
p. 73). In 1878, however, Mr. Frank Bourdillon met with the 
species in Southern Travancore, as recorded by Mr. Hume in 
the seventh volume of “Stray Feathers” (p. 37). Again, in 
Capt. Legge’s “ Birds of Ceylon,” reference is made to a specimen 
which had been since 1854 lying undetermined in a box in the 
British Museum; but Capt. Legge (somewhat inconsistently 
in my opinion) only gave it a place in his work in a foot-note. 
‘There is not the slightest reason for believing that the specimen 
in question is not a genuine Ceylonese skin, as it was purchased 
by the Museum from Mr. Cuming, who received it doubtless 
from one of bis correspondents, perhaps Mr. Thwaites or 
