

PH^OENIS OBSCUKA. 



OMAU, OLOMAU, KAMAU. 



w Dusty Flycatcher," Latham, Gen. Synops. ii. p. 344 (1783). 



Muscicapa obscura, Gmelin, Syst. Nat. i. p. 945 (1788); Latham, Lid. Om. p. 479 (1790); 



Stephens, Shaw's Zool. x. p. 405 (1817) ; Vieillot, N. Diet. d'Hist. nat. xxi. p. 465 (1818); 



id. Encycl. Method., Oroithol. p. 809 (1823). 

 " Gobe-monche brun des iles Sandwich" (sp. 2), Virey (Sonnini), Hist. Nat. Buffon, Ois. xiv. p. 172 



(1802). 

 Tyrannula obscura, Peale, U.S. Expl. Exped., Birds, p. 310 (1848). 

 Chasiempsis obscura, Hartlanb, Arch. f. Naturgesch. 1852, i. p. 133. 

 Tcenioptera obscura, Cassin, U.S. Expl. Exped., Mamm. & Orn. p. 155, pi. ix. fig. 3* (1858) ; Dole, 



Proc. Bost. Soc. N. H. 1869, p. 300; id. Hawaiian Alman. 1879, p. 48. 

 Phceornis obscura, Sclater, Ibis, 1859, p. 327, 1871, p. 360; id. Proc. Zool. Soc. 1878, p. 347; Von 



Pelzeln, Ibis, 1874, p. 462; Sharpe, Cat. B. Br. Mus. iv. p. 5 (1879); Scott Wilson, Ibis, 



1890, p. 195. 

 Eopsaltria {Chasiempsis) obscura, G. R. Gray, Cat. B. Trop. Isl. p. 22 (1859). 



„ {Phceornis) obscura, G. R. Gray, Hand-1. i. p. 390 (1869) . 



* Figura notabiUs. 



As was the case with so many other Sandwich-Island species, this was first described by 

 Latham from examples in the Leverian Museum, brought home by Cook's companions 

 on his third and fatal voyage ; and, from Herr von Pelzeln's note in ' The Ibis ' for 1874, 

 it appears that the type specimen still exists in the Museum of Vienna \ Gmelin, in 

 1788, gave it the name of Muscicapa obscura, nor has it since received a different 

 specific title ; but Peale, who obtained, additional specimens during the United States 

 Exploring Expedition in the ' Vincennes ' and ' Peacock,' placed it in the genus 

 Tyrannula, the remarkable distinctness of the Family to which that belongs not being 

 then fully appreciated. Cassin, in his account of this Expedition, redescribed and 

 figured it under the designation of Tcenioptera obscura, with notes taken mainly from 

 Peale ; while, unless the variety of Turdus sandwichensis, from Oahu, be meant for the 

 same bird in Bloxam's list in the narrative of the voyage of the 'Blonde ' (p. 250), it does 

 not seem to have been observed by the naturalists on board that ship. No later visitors 

 to the Islands appear to have procured examples until I did so in 1887, but the dingy 



1 The difficulty as to its habitat, noticed by Herr von Pelzeln, seems explicable on the supposition that 

 " Christian's Isle under the Line " is a transcriber's mistake for Christmas Island, which was discovered and so 

 named by Cook a few days before he found the Sandwich Islands; but even then another mistake has probably 

 been made, for there is no evidence that the species inhabits that lonely spot, which is also called Turtle 

 Island. 



