Brewster, Notes on Certain Flycatchers. 
r Auk 
L April 
158 
Muscicapa acadica of Gmelin (Syst. Nat., I, 1788, p. 947) was 
based on the “ Lesser-Crested Flycatcher ” of Pennant (Arctic 
Zoology, II, 1785, p. 386, n. 268) and the former author’s 
diagnosis is an almost literal translation into Latin of the latter’s 
description which is as follows : — 
“268. Lesser-Crested. Fl. With a small backward crest : 
head, neck, and back, of a dirty light cinereous green : breast and 
belly whitish, tinged with yellow : wings and tail dusky ; coverts 
crossed with two bars of white ; secondaries edged with white : 
legs black. Place. Inhabits Nova Scotia. — Capt. Davies .” 
This characterization is obviously too vague and general to be 
determinable. It fits E. traillii quite as well as E. acadicus , and 
it can be applied without much violence to autumnal specimens 
of E. minimus. Of course doubts on this score have been Ions: 
since acknowledged and expressed ; nor would they alone at this 
late day justify any serious question of the established appli- 
cation of the name acadica — an application which has become 
fixed and current by a certain process of exclusion and by long 
usage — were it not that we now know definitely what was only 
half suspected by the ornithologists of the past generation, viz., 
that the so-called “ Acadian Flycatcher ” is not a bird of 
“ Acadia ” at all. On the contrary, its normal range along the 
Atlantic seaboard does not extend to the northward of Long 
Island, although there are, of course, two or three records of its 
chance occurrence in southern New England. This being the 
case it would seem to be no longer possible to maintain that this 
southern Empidonax could have been the original Muscicapa 
acadica , for both Pennant and Gmelin name only Nova Scotia as 
the habitat of their bird, and the mention by the former of the 
person — Captain Davies, — from whom apparently he received 
his specimen, gives his statement as to its origin a certain 
definiteness which allays any suspicion that a mistake may have 
been made on this point. 
These considerations would seem to make it imperative to 
select another name for the bird which has been so long called 
Empidonax acadicus. The earliest name available is apparently 
Platyrhynchos virescens Vieillot (Nouv. Diet. d’Hist. Nat., XXVII, 
1 818, 22) based on Wilson and hence unmistakably referable 
to this species. Wilson’s name, Muscicapa querula (Am. Orn., 
II, 1810, p. 77, pi. 13, f. 3), is, of course, still earlier, but it is 
preoccupied by Muscicapa querula [= Contopus virens~\ Vieillot 
(Ois. Am. Sept., I, 1807, p. 68, pi. 39). Dr. Coues has said 
(Birds N. W., 1874, p. 250) that “if acadica be set aside as 
indefinite or inapplicable ” it will be necessary to take, “ if belong- 
ing here,” Muscicapa subviridis Bartram, but this is a mere “ nomen 
nudum.” 
Should these conclusions be granted and Empidonax acadicus 
of recent American writers become Empidonax virescens (Vieill.), 
it would also seem advisable to change the name Acadian Fly- 
catcher to Green-crested Flycatcher, for the bird was generally 
known to the earlier American ornithologists as the Small Green- 
crested Flycatcher. 
