ORNITHOLOGY. 



569 



Insessores. and variously disposed, according to the views of each par- 



s "~""v~"""' ticular author. 



Many of the genera next ensuing are more allied to the 

 fly-catchers, MuscicapicUe ; but not a few are classed by 

 recent writers among the Laniadce and Ampelidte. The 

 bill is of medium size, broad at the base, horizontally de- 

 pressed, almost straight, generally wider than high, the 

 point more or less hooked and notched. The mouth is 

 garnished with bristly feathers projecting forwards. Their 

 food varies according to their size and strength, — the 

 more powerful species seizing occasionally on small birds 

 as well as insects, the more feeble being satisfied with the 

 latter kind of prey. 



In the genus Tyr annus, Cuv., the bill is straight, length- 

 ened, strong, the culmen rounded, the point suddenly 

 hooked. See Plate CCCXC. fig. 5. The species consist 

 chiefly of Linnaean fly-catchers, with a few shrikes. They 

 are all native to America, and, as their name implies, are 

 fierce and domineering in their disposition. They will de- 

 fend their young against the boldest aggressor, and have 

 been seen to drive from their nesting-places even the largest 

 birds of prey. As an example, we may here name the 

 king-bird, or tyrant fly-catcher, of the new world, T. in- 

 trepidus. This species is one of the most remarkable for 

 the boldness and intrepidity which he displays in his at- 

 tacks on the strongest of the feathered race. During the 

 earlier months of summer, indeed, his life is one continued 

 scene of broil and battle. According to Wilson, hawks 

 and crows, the bald eagle, and the great black eagle, all 

 equally dread an encounter with this dauntless creature, 

 who, as soon as he perceives a bird of prey, however power- 

 ful, in his neighbourhood, darts into the air, and quickly 

 ascending above his supposed enemy, pounces with vio- 

 lence upon his back, and continues his attack till his own 

 domains have been departed from. He is likewise in some 

 measure obnoxious to the human race, on account of his 

 love of bees ; for he will take post on a fence or garden-tree 

 in the vicinity of hives, and make continual sallies on the 

 industrious tenants, as they pass to and from their never- 

 ceasing labours. His great American biographer, how- 

 ever, is of opinion, that whatever prejudice may prevail 

 against him for such depredations, he is on the whole 

 greatly the friend of man, by destroying multitudes of in- 

 sects, whose larvse prey on the produce of the field and 

 garden. The tyrant has been immortalised in verse as well 

 as prose : 



Far in the south, where vast Maragnon flows, 



And boundless forests unknown wilds enclose, 



Vine-tangled shores and suffocating woods, 



Parch'd up with heat, or drown'd with pouring floods; 



Where each extreme alternately prevails, 



And nature sad their ravages bewails ; 



Lo ! high in air above those trackless wastes, 



With spring's return the king-bird hither hastes ; 



Coasts the famed gulf, and from his height explores 



Its thousand streams, its long indented shores, 



Its plains immense, wide opening on the day, 



Its lakes and isles, where feather'd millions play : 



All tempt not him : till gazing from on high, 



Columbia's regions wide below him lie ; 



There end his wanderings and his wish to roam. 



There lie his native woods, his fields, his home ; 



Down, circling, he descends from azure heights, 



And on a full-blown sassafras alights. 



Fatigued and silent, for a while he views 

 His old-frequented haunts, and shades recluse ; 

 Sees brothers, comrades, every hour arrive, — 

 Hears, humming round, the tenants of the hive ; 

 Love fires his breast, — he woos, and soon is blest, 

 And in the blooming orchard builds bis nest. 



The king-bird migrates in summer at least as far north Insessores. 

 as the fifty-seventh parallel. It reaches Carlton House in x ^~ v— ■ -' 

 the month of May, and retires southward in September. 

 A new species has been of late years discovered on the 

 banks of the Saskatchewan, but nothing is yet known of 

 its habits. It is described by Mr Swainson under the title 

 of Tyrannus borealis. It is considerably smaller than the 

 preceding, and may at once be distinguished by its forked 

 tail, not tipped with white. 1 The other species are nu- 

 merous.' 



A still more extensive genus is that named Muscipeta, 

 Cuv. The bill is long, much depressed, twice as broad 

 as high even at the base, the culmen usually very blunt, 

 the margins forming an oval curve, the point feebly 

 notched, and the base covered by long, setaceous feathers. 

 The general form of the species is feeble compared with 

 that of the preceding, and they prey exclusively on in- 

 sects. They are extremely beautiful, often adorned by 

 crests upon the head, or by gracefully elongated feathers 

 in the tail. The majority are native to Africa and India. 

 The paradise fly-catcher of Le Vaillant may be named as 

 an example. 



In the genus Platyrhynchus of Desm., the bill is 

 short, and still broader and more depressed than in the 

 preceding. P. cancrotmts inhabits Brazil. These birds are 

 by some conjoined with Todus, to which they are assured- 

 ly allied. Certain species, of which the feet and legs are 

 long and slender, and the tail extremely short, form the 

 genus Conophaga of Vieillot. The fly-catchers properly 

 so called, genus Muscicapa, Cuv., have the beard or bill- 

 feathers less extended than in Muscipeta, and the bill itself 

 is narrower, the ridge or culmen is distinctly marked, the 

 margins straight, the point slightly bent. The species 

 are peculiar to the ancient continent, and not more than 

 four or five occur in Europe. Of these, two are British, 

 M. grisola, or the spotted fly-catcher, a well-known and 

 common species ; and M. luctuosa, or the pied fly-catcher, 

 which is very rare. We have seen it on the banks of the 

 Eden in Cumberland. Both are birds of passage. The 

 species of this genus take their insect prey upon the wing, 

 darting upon it at intervals from some favourite twig. 

 The males and females differ considerably in their mark- 

 ings, especially in spring and summer, although the former 

 sex (at least in M. albicollis, Temm.) are scarcely to be dis- 

 tinguished from the latter throughout the winter season. 

 The modifications in the form of the bill in this extensive 

 genus have led to the formation, so far as concerns exotic 

 species, of a vast number of sectional groups, or subge- 

 nera, the characters of which we cannot here detail. 



We now arrive, in accordance with Baron Cuvier's sys- 

 tem, though not, we fear, by natural transition, at the 

 genus Gymnocephalus, of which the beak resembles that 

 of Tyrannus, except that the ridge is more arched, and a 

 great portion of the face is bare of feathers. See Plate 

 CCCXC. fig. 8. There seems to be only a single spe- 

 cies, commonly called the bald crow ( G. calvus), a bird 

 about the size of a rook, of a uniform tobacco-brown colour, 

 the feathers of the wings and tail black. It is called oiseau 

 mon prere by the Creoles of Cayenne, probably from its 

 capucin aspect. Its bald front bestows upon it a very 

 singular physiognomy. Vaillant regards the absence of 

 feathers on that part as accidental ; and he mentions in a 

 note, 3 that he received a specimen from Cayenne, in which 

 the face was plumed. But M. Lesson states that he has 

 examined more than twenty specimens, and has always 

 found the face unfeathered. 



The genus Cephalopterus, on the contrary (see Plate 



1 See Fauna BorealuArnericana, part ii. pi. lxxxv. 



* Consult Mr Swainson's " Monography of the Tyrant Shrikes of America," Journal of the Royal Institution, No. xl. 



5 Histoire des Oiteaux de Paradis, t i. p. 109. 



xvi. 4 c 



