Family — M USCICAPIDiE. 
This family is one of the worst defined and largest in the Order, and in order 
to make scientific progress slower recent workers have advocated its extension 
instead of its diminution. This course has been suggested without due 
consideration of the results to science, so that any small Passerine bird of 
unknown affinity might be classed with safety, if not accuracy, in it. 
With regard to Australian genera alone it is difficult to determine its 
limits, and it would be worth much more than any series of skins to have the 
skeletons of only the chief members described. The genera admitted in my 
List of the Birds of Australia,” published in 1913, include Microeca , Kempia, 
Petroica, Littlera, Erythrodryas, Belchera , Whiteornis, Melanodryas, Amauro- 
dryas, Smicrornis, Gerygone, Wilsonavis, Ethelornis, Pseudogerygone, Hetero- 
myias, Peed lodry as, Quoyornis, Tregellasia, Kempiella, Pachycephala, Lewinornis , 
Gilbertornis, Alisterornis , Timixos, Mattingleya, Muscitrea, Eopsaltria, Rhipi- 
dura , Howeavis, Setosura, Leucocirca, Myiagra, Machcerirhynchus , Seisura, 
Ophryzone, Piezorhynchus, Symposiachrus, Garterornis, and Monarcha. These 
genera were practically monotypic, and when anatomical investigation has 
furnished sufficient material I expect to see many reduced to subgenera, but 
I also anticipate the entire distinction of some and their closer alliance with 
other birds not now included in the family established. Thus Kempia is pro- 
bably truly a subgenus of Microeca, but the usage of subgenera is not yet fully 
accepted by working ornithologists and therefore to indicate the differences I 
use the term in a generic sense. In the same way Petroica may be found to 
cover more species, but at the present time Belchera seems more distinct than 
Erythrodryas, while the immature stages of Melanodryas and Amaurodryas 
indicate very close alliance. 
The limits of Gerygone are difficult to define, as Pseudogerygone was pro- 
posed for a very distinct species, but used to cover quite unlike birds which 
seem to approach Gerygone much more closely. Heteromyias and Poecilodryas 
are two very distinct northern genera which may have their closest allies in 
the “ Petroica ” complex, though at present so well differentiated. Under 
Poecilodryas Rothschild and Hartert included the species leucops which 
Salvadori had described as a Leucophantes and whose very close allies Gould 
and Ramsay had determined as Eopsaltria. These constitute the well- 
marked group Tregellasia. Gould described two other species as Eopsaltria , 
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