Genus — RHIPIDURA. 
Rhipidura Vigors & Horsfield, Trans. Linn. 
Soc. (Lond.), Vol. XV., p. 246, Feb. 17, 
1827. (Type by subsequent designation 
Gray, 1840, p. 32) ... ... ... ... Muscicapa flabellifera Gmelin. 
Also spelt — 
Rhipedura Swainson, Classif. Birds, Vol. II., p. 193, July 1, 1837. 
Rhypidura Ramsay, Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W., Vol. I., p. 43, Feb. 1876. 
Ripidicala Boie, Neues Staats. Magazin 
(Schleswig), Vol. I., heft 2, p. 489, 1832. 
Type (by subsequent designation Mathews, 
List Birds Austr., p. 184, 1913) ... ... Muscicapa flabellifera Gmelin. 
Also spelt — 
Rhipidicala Gray, App. List Gen. Birds, p. 9, (April) 1842. 
Rhipidicidura “ Boie ” Gray, Handl. Gen. Sp. Birds, Vol. I., p. 330, (pref. 
May 10) 1869 : nom. nudum. 
The series of birds classed together under Rhipidura constitute a compact 
group of “ Flycatchers,” which probably merit family rank and which are 
characterised by their long Fantails. They vary in coloration, size of bill, 
tail and legs and feet. The present one, upon which the genus was founded, 
has a very short bill, the rictal bristles exceeding it in length, small legs and 
feet, and long tail of broad soft feathers. ^ 
When Sharpe prepared the Catalogue of the Birds in the British Museum 
he did not split up this group until he considered R. euryura Muller, when for 
this species alone he proposed a new genus Neomyias on account of its small 
feet ; he compared these with the bill, making the tarsus shorter than the 
culmen, which it may have been according to his measurement, but I make 
it a millimetre longer, but that is valueless. Rhipidura buttikoferi , named by 
Sharpe afterward, and which Hartert makes a subspecies of rufiventris along 
with the species I have differentiated generically as Setosura, shows almost 
exactly the same measurements both as to culmen and tarsus. 
In Rhipidura the bill is very small, while in Setosura it is very long and 
broad. It is elongately triangular, the culmen notably keeled, the sides 
depressed, a little bowed, the tip anteriorly pinched ; the lower mandible is 
flattened, the nostrils are open, semi-operculate and hidden by nasal bristles. 
VOL. IX. 
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