APALIS thoracica.
Gorget Warbler.
This is one of the pretty warblers of Southern Africa, discovered by Le Vaillant: it is very common and widely distributed in the interior, but rare near the Cape. Le Vaillant mentions having found a young bird of the Criard Cuckoo, in the pigmy nest of this little species, which had already grown to the size of a thrush: it not only filled the nest, but actually enlarged and destroyed its original shape. Yet still did the foster parents, by a most extraordinary instinct, go on feeding this overgrown parasite, although it was even then more than double the size of themselves. Our figure is of the natural size of the male; the female is without the black collar. Specimens are in Mr. Burchell's Museum and in our own.
APALIS thoracica,
Gorget Warbler.
Family Sylviadæ. Sub-fam: Sylvianæ. Genus (?) Apalis.
Generic (?) Character.
General structure of Prinea, but the bill shorter, the plumage more compact, and the outer toe not connected to the middle as far as the first joint.
Specific Character.
Olive green, beneath yellowish white; breast with a black collar; three lateral tail-feathers partly white: front black.
Le Plastron Noir. Le Vaill. Ois. d'Af. 3 pl. 123. f. 1. male. 2. fem. Motacilla thoracica. Nat. Miss. 22. pl. 969.
That this bird is of a tenuirostral type, is almost certain; seeing that it is an obvious representation of Motacilla, Pachycephala, Tamatia, Trichas, Charadrius, and many other collared groups: but whether it forms part of the genus Prinea, or represents the tenuirostral genus between that and Culicivora, is very uncertain. We suspect that this latter station is filled by the Taylor-Warblers of India, not one of which is to be found in our public Museums.