OCR Text |
Show 1874.] THE GENUS SAXICOLA. 215 Smith), Myrmecocichla (type M. formicivora, Vieill.), Thamnolaa (type Th. cinnarnomeiventris, Lafr.), and Oreicola (type O. pyr-rhonota, Vieill.) are fairly distinguishable as separate generic groups, though all closely allied to the true Saxicola. The genus Saxicola was originally established by Bechstein, in 1802 (Ornithologisches Taschenbuch von und fiir Deutschland, p. 216), and comprised S. cenanthe, S. rubetra, and S. rubicola. The two latter species were separated as Pratincola by Koch in 1816 (Baier. Zool. p. 190, pi. v. a, fig. 38), P. rubetra being the type. In the same year the generic name Fitiflora was given by Leach to Saxicola cenanthe in his ' Systematic Catalogue of the British Museum,' p. 21 ; whilst a third generic term, (Enanthe, was given also in the same year by Vieillot (' Analyse Nouv. Orn. Elem.' p. 43). Vieillot added a large number of species taken from the works of Levaillant and others in the ' Nouveau Dictionnaire d'His-toire Naturelle,' Vol. xxi. Art. Motteux. In 1827 Swainson proposed the genus Campicola, with Le Traquet imitateur of Levaillant (S. pileata) as the type. This is a somewhat stouter form than typical Saxicola ; but there is so complete a passage from one to the other that we cannot separate them. Meantime a large number of forms had been added to the genus by Lichtenstein, Hemprich, Ehrenberg and others, until the number of species assigned to it by Mr. G. R. Gray in his ' Genera of Birds ' (1849), p. 179, amounted to 33. In the course of the 20 years which elapsed between the appearance of the ' Genera' and that of the ' Hand-list,' that number, including the species referred to various subgenera, had swollen to 69 ; and a few additional species have been described since. In the present monograph we have reduced the number to 37; but we exclude from the genus 12 of the species included in Mr. Gray's first work, and 15 of those enumerated under various subgeneric groups in the second. W e have prefaced the descriptions of the species belonging to our genus by an analytical synopsis, in which all the forms are classed according to the coloration of the males, or of the birds supposed to be males. In the synonymy we have only included, as a rule, a quotation from the first proposer of each different specific name. W e have endeavoured, to the best of our power, to disentangle the confused nomenclature which exists ; and we think it will be found that we have considerably diminished the list of nominal species. Something more in this direction perhaps remains to be done amongst the South-African forms. The genus Saxicola, as understood by us, ranges throughout Europe, Western and Central Asia, and the whole of Africa. One species extends to North America ; but the genus is unrepresented in the remainder of the American continent, Australia, and the Indo- Malay region, such species as are included in the Indian fauna being found in the central and north-western parts of the Indian peninsula in winter only. There is a remarkable difference between the Palse-arctic forms and those found in the Ethiopian region : the former |