THE TRUE FLYCATCHERS. 
319 
Avi-fauna. Some have been included by mistake, while others 
no have doubt been recorded on evidence which should have 
secured their suppression. The “Gold-vented Thrush,” as 
it has been called for so many years in works on British Orni- 
thology, belongs to a group of birds of the most stay-at-home 
character, and the nearest inhabitant to our shores is the 
Bulbul of Algeria, Pycnonotus barbatus, which is not one of 
the gold-vented section of the genus. A specimen of a 
Pycnonotus is said to have been shot near Waterford in 
January, 1838, by Dr. R Burkitt, and skinned by him. It 
turns out to be the Bulbul of South Africa, P. capensis, one of 
the most restricted of all the species in its range, being in fact 
confined to the Cape Colony below the Karroo country. There 
is not the slightest probability of the bird’s having migrated 
from the Cape to Ireland, and the supposition that it might 
have been an escaped specimen might have been entertained 
but for the fact that an “Eagle-Owl” shot in Ireland by the 
same gentleman, turned out to be another South African 
species, viz., Bubo maculosus . There seems, therefore, to be 
some mistake connected with the occurrence of these African 
species in Ireland, and the birds had better be dropped out 
of the British List altogether. 
THE FLYCATCHERS. FAMILY MUSCICAPIDaE. 
The Flycatchers evince their affinity with the Thrushes by 
the mottled character of the young birds, but they have 
flatter and broader bills, and are remarkable for the number 
and strength of their rictal bristles, and for having the nostrils 
always more or less covered with hairs ; the culmen is generally 
provided with a keel. 
They are entirely birds of the Old World, and are distributed 
over all four regions, being found even in the Pacific Islands. 
The so-called “ Flycatchers ” of America are the Tyrant-birds, 
and belong to a totally different family, Tyrannidce. 
THE TRUE FLYCATCHERS. GENUS MUSCICAPA. 
Muscicapa , L'nn., Syst. Nat., i., p. 324 (1766). 
Type, M. grisola (Linn.). 
The bill in this genus is only moderately broadened, in com 
