318 Viscount Walden on the Muscicapa melanictera. 
naire 3 he introduced Le Cap Negre as the first species of the 
genus, associating it with Le Quadricolor , Le Vaillant ( Motacilla 
zeylonica, Gm., JE. quadricolor, Vieill.). He apparently had 
no better or other reason for thus uniting under the same 
genus these two dissimilar forms, than the fact that the plates 
representing the two birds succeeded one another in Le Vail- 
lanCs great work. Drapiez followed suit; for while giving our 
bird another specific name, nigricapilla , he referred it to Hors- 
field's genus lor a, which was founded on the Javan form of 
I. typhia (/. scapularis, Horsf.). In the Catalogue of the Cal¬ 
cutta Museum, Mr. Blyth removed JE. atricapilla, Vieill., to 
the genus Pycnonotus, Kuhl; but later, in the addenda to Ap¬ 
pendix II. of that Catalogue, he suggested that Drapiez's specific 
title would have to stand in preference to VieilloCs, as the 
Muscicapa atricapilla , Vieill.* (SonneraCs Gobe-mouche a tete 
noire de la Chine) , was also a Pycnonotus. If it were necessary, 
upon the grounds of priority alone, to decide the point of pre¬ 
cedence, this last name, instead of having to be preferred, would 
have to give way, as it was published in 1818, two years later 
than that of JE. atricapilla, Vieill. But the two species are 
generically separable, and the priority of their specific names 
cannot come into conflict, M. atricapilla, Vieill., belonging to 
the group of which Muscicapa hcemorrhusa, Gm., is the type, 
while JE. atricapilla, Vieill., belongs to the same genus as Tur- 
dus dispar, Horsf., and Br achy pus rubineus, Jerd.,—the first being 
the type of Brachypus, Sw., the last of Rubigula, Blyth. How¬ 
ever, in framing his * Catalogue of Ceylon Birds/ Kelaart 
adopted Drapiez^s specific title, introducing R. gularis (Gould) 
into the list as an additional species. 
In 1835, under the name of Brachypus gularis, Mr. Gould 
described a bird said to be from Travancore. The description 
* This species has been figured in the ‘ U. S. Japan Exp/ (vol. ii. p. 
241, ph 6, Orn.) under the title of Ixos hcemorrhous (Gm.), Mr. Cassin 
having regarded it as the true Muscicapa hcemorrhusa , Gm. Gmelin’s 
species, however, was based upon the “ Red-vented Flycatcher ” of 
Brown’s e Illustrations,’ which comes from Ceylon. An extensive series 
of specimens of this species is contained in the collection I have just 
received. They in no way differ from Malabar and South Indian examples. 
