MUSCICAPA. 
223 
gra or as a Muscicapa , our theory that these two 
sub-genera unite will not he affected. But we 
must not think that there are no variations from 
the structure of Muscicapa grisola in the other 
species associated in the same sub-genus : on the 
contrary, there are some very remarkable ones 
besides the one just instanced in M. erythaca, 
which, as w T e shall presently show, is evidently an 
extreme aberrant species. In our M. thalassina 
and ruficauHa, two Indian species subsequently 
described, the wings are so much rounded as to 
resemble those of M. erythaca, although the toes 
are not more united than in M. grisola, and in all 
these three the tail is rounded. Again, in our M. 
latirostris, another species from India, the plumage 
is almost precisely the same as that of grisola ; but 
then the bill is so remarkably depressed as to give 
it the appearance, in this respect, of being a Myia- 
gra. From these we pass to the European albic'ollis , 
by means of such birds as M. parviroslra and leu- 
cura, which begin to show the white and black 
colour so common on the tail of the stone-chats. 
Our M. parvirostra agrees so closely in point of 
colour with the description of the bird called by M. 
Temminck the young male of his M. alMcollis, that 
we question very much if it may not have been 
overlooked for that. However this may be, the 
two species, in our opinion, are sufficiently distinct. 
The bill of the adult albicollis, which we found in 
Sicily near twenty years ago, is broad at its base, 
while that of parvirostra , as the name implies, is 
