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EPRYLAIMTlg. 
their scientific elucidation. The different groups of 
flycatchers we have hitherto noticed have been 
small, delicate-shaped birds, seldom equalling the 
size of the robin, and generally smaller than a wren ; 
hut those we are now come to are of a very different 
character. Their average size is nearly that of a 
starling or small thrush. Their shape is thick and 
robust, and their head and bill enormously large ; 
their whole aspect, in short, at the first glance, is so 
different from any other group, that the most un- 
practised eye would detect, without at first compre- 
hending, their striking difference from all other 
birds. So far, therefore, we shall find this pecu- 
liarity of character a circumstance highly favourable 
for the investigation of their affinities, because it 
removes those difficulties which impeded the com- 
plete illustration of the intricate groups just noticed. 
And yet, notwithstanding this great dissimilarity in 
general appearance between the ordinary flycatchers 
and these birds, a more attentive examination of 
their structure proves them to be but a race of the 
same family, essentially possessing the same general 
structure, yet with some parts enlarged and others 
reduced ; modifications, in short, which obviously 
indicate peculiar manners, and which tend to ex- 
hibit, at the same time, a higher developemcnt of 
the fissirostral type than any we have yet noticed. 
All the species yet discovered have been found in 
Tropical Asia, where they represent, in the same 
latitudes, the todies of the New World. Linnaeus 
and his followers, indeed, placed both in the same 
