MIMETA VIRIDIS, King. 

 Green Grakle. 



PLATE LXI. 



M. olivaceo-viridis, subtus albida, nigro guttatim striata ; alis caudaque nigro-fuscis, 



illis albido marginatis, hoc apice albch 



Gracula viridis, Lath. Ind. Orn. Supp. xxviii Shaw, Gen. Zool. vol. viii. p. 4-73. 



Green Grakle, Lath. Gen. Hist. vol. iii. p. 168. 



Mimetis viridis, King's Survey of the Coasts of Australia, App. vol. ii. p. 415. 



Mimeta viridis, Fig. £f Horsf. Trans. Linn. Soc. vol. xv. part i. p. 326. 



VV e are indebted to Captain P. P. King for the formation of the present 

 genus, founded upon the Gracula viridis, the Green Grakle of modern 

 British ornithologists, with two new species discovered by him during his 

 survey of the intertropical coasts of Australia, and also for some very ju- 

 dicious remarks upon the nature of these birds, giving the grounds upon 

 which his genus is founded. We have thought these remarks worthy of 

 being transcribed : " The next bird in the collection (alluding to the 

 birds collected during his voyages, and described along with this), has 

 been arranged by Dr Latham in the Linnean genus Gracula, but appears 

 to me to agree in no respect with that genus, as originally characterised 

 by Linn^us, much less with it as it has been modified by modern orni- 

 thologists. Whether we consider, according to M. Cuvier, that the type 

 of Gracula is the Paradisea tristis, Linn., or, according to M. Temminck, 

 that it is the Gracula religiosa, Linn., in which latter opinion I feel ra- 

 ther disposed to acquiesce, my bird agrees with the group in none of its 

 essential characters. In fact, the Linnean genus Oriohis is that to which 

 it bears the closest resemblance in its general appearance ; particularly 

 by a similar disposition of its colours, and in the structure of its bill, wings, 

 and legs. I would at once refer it to that genus, but that I have some 

 reason to think that it belongs to the Meliphagous birds, which are so 

 abundant in New Holland, and which have been observed to assume the 

 appearance of almost every group in the Insessores. Indeed, some birds 

 of that country, which have been decided to be Meliphagous, such as the 

 Meliphaga cyanops, Lewin, and others allied to it, which differ little from 

 the bird before us, have so many external relations with the Orioles, that 

 they probably would be found to arrange themselves in the same family 

 with them, were it not for the totally different structure of their tongue, and 



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