294 Mr.Vicors’s and Dr. HonsriErnp's Description of the 
family of Certhiade a few Australian species only have as yet 
been sent home to us. It is however to be observed, that a 
neighbouring family to the present, that of the Meliphagide, 
of which a considerable variety of forms and a number of species 
occur in Australia, possesses one of the grand characteristics of 
the scansorial birds, a strong and lengthened hallux. And it 
consequently becomes a question whether these birds, distin- 
guished by such a peculiarity which separates them from all 
the other honey-eating birds of the Old and the New World, may 
not for the most part supply the place of the more typical climb- 
ing birds in that fifth division of the globe. The peculiar vege- 
tation of the country, which seems to unite to so great an extent 
the strength of the forest-tree with the blossoms of the shrub, 
serves in some measure to strengthen such a conjecture, and to 
account for this singular union of characters, as administering 
at once to the purposes of the birds which AR the scan- 
sorial and mellivorous tribes. 
The following genus, which holds the same place in Australia 
as the true Certhia fills in the anciént continent, and the nume- 
rous: group of Dendrocolaptes, Herm., in South America, is the 
first which presents itself of this family. It possesses the strong 
and lengthened shafts of the tail-feathers which support the 
typical scansorial birds in climbing, and immediately connects 
the whole group by a strong affinity with the Woodpeckers. 
».OnrHoxNxx. Temm. 
1. TzuMiNcCKII. Orth.rufo-brunneus; capite, regione nuchali, 
interscapulioque nigro-variegatis ; tectricibus nigris apice al- 
bido; gutture, pectore, abdomineque medio albis. 
Caput rufo-brunneum nigro-lineatum, strigá laterali oculos in- 
cludente grisea. Guttur parce nigro undulatum. Nucha 
interscapuliumque strigis latis nigris notatæ ; illius lateri- 
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