HISTORY OF THE GENUS VIEEO 487 



The bistory of the genus began in 1807, when Yieillot estab- 

 lished Vireo upon species which had been referred by earlier 

 authors to Musoicapa — as MM. novtboracensis and oUvacea — and 

 described the new species " Muscicapa" gilva, "M." altiloq^ua, 

 and Vireo flavifrons, besides renaming the two earlier species, 

 which he called respectively Vireo " virescens " and Vireo 

 " musicus ". It is curious that, in establishing the genus Vireo, 

 he should thus have, nevertheless, described two Vireos as 

 " Muscicapa". In 1810, Wilson named " Muscicapa" solitaria, 

 "melodia", "sylvicola", and " cantatrix"; the first of these 

 holds, but the other three are respectively the same as gilvus Y., 

 flavifrons V., and noveboracensis Gm, ; the name cantatrix is 

 derived from Bartram, 1791. An extralimital species was 

 named hartramii by Swainaon in 1831, under the wrong im- 

 pression that it was North American ; the name gave trouble, 

 and was not eradicated from our lists until 1866. In 1838, Bona- 

 parte first proposed to divide tbe genus into Vireosylva and 

 Vireo, basing the former name on the long-billed, long-winged 

 V. olivaceus, with apparently only nine primaries. Vireosylva, 

 by which Bonaparte doubtless meant to say Vireosylvia (as Gr. 

 E. Gray wrote in 1848), was changed by Cabanis in 1847 into 

 Phyllomanes, for no obvious reason. Audubon added one 

 species, V. belli, in 1844. In 1848, William Gambel added a 

 species (the subsequent barbatulus) to our fauna under the 

 name of altiloquus. Cassin gave a monographic sketch of the 

 genus in 1851,* adding three new species, V. huttoni, V. phila- 



tion. But the color test is often inapplicable, coverts and primaries being 

 usually like each other in this respect, and color sometimes points the other 

 way. Thus, in Sitta carolinenaia, a ten-primaried Oscine with spurious first 

 primary, the single remaining little feather is white at base across both webs, 

 like the primaries, the true primary coverts being white only on the inner 

 web. 



The subject is further discussed in my paper, from which this note is 

 extracted, " On the Number of Primaries in Oscines ", <l}uJ?. Nutt. Ornith. 

 Club, i. no. 3, Sept. 1876, pp. 60-63. See also the following :— 



1878.— Batohelder, C. F. Spurious Primaries in the Eed-eyed Vireo [Vireo 

 olivaceus]. <^£ull. Nutt. Ornith. Club, iii. no. 2, Apr. 1878, pp. 97, 98. 

 The -wiiter has apparently meivsnred the quill from the carpal joint, giving 

 dimensions much above those of the exposed portion of the feather. 



*1851. Cassin, J. Sketch of the Birds composing the genera Vireo, Vieillot, 

 and Viieosylvia, Bonaparte, with a List of the previously known 

 and descriptions of three new species. < Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila. 

 V. 1851, FP. 149-154, nil. X, xi. 



Vireo, 5 spp. ; Y. huttoni, p. 150, pi. i. f. 1, sp. n. Vireosylvia, 6 spp. ; V. flavo- 

 viridis, p. 152, pi. xi. ; V. philadelphica, p. 153, pi. i. f. 2, spp. na. 



