THE MCSCICAPID.-E. 
69 
the typical groups, which are so dissimilar from any 
of the chatterers, that they are in no danger of being 
confounded, even by the student; but in such as 
appear to be aberrant divisions, or, in other words, 
which connect the two families, the leading charac- 
ters of both are in a greater or less degree united. 
The birds which occupy this intervening station 
have an organization which proves them to feed 
upon fruit as well as upon insects, and the propor- 
tion in which these two different regimens are 
combined is manifested by the structure of the 
mouth ; the presence or absence of rigid bristles at 
the rictus or gape, is decisive of the bird being fru- 
givorous or insectivorous ; and when, as in the Piau- 
hou or red- throated chatterer of authors, the gape and 
general form of the bill assimilates to the Ampelidce, 
yet that the rictus has stiff bristles, we infer that 
such a bird, although habitually a fruit-eater, is like- 
wise a devourer of insects. And this accordingly 
turns out to be the fact. In this and all the otlier 
types which shew a tendency towards the family we 
have just left, the feet are much the same as those 
of the genus Casmorhynchm : that is, the toes are 
more or less united at their base, the soles broad, 
and the lateral scales of the tarsi are very small 
and numerous ; the gape also continues to be very 
wide and the bill strong, often thick, and although 
depressed, is never so completely flattened as in 
the typical Muscicapidte ; the few birds placed in 
the genera Psaris, Pachrynchus, and Querula, are 
precisely of this description, and but for the stiff 
