OATESTS BIRDS OF INDIA. 169 



We hope that ornithologists will make, if necessary, such a strong representa- 

 tion to the Government of India, that there may be no question about the grant of 

 special leave to Mr. Oates to enable him to finish his work, for fear that the con- 

 clusion of it should fall into less capable hands. 



Now for the work itself. The first volume consists of the " Preface," by the 

 editor (pp. 1 — 10), followed by a diagram of the contour of a bird, which will be 

 useful to beginners in assisting them to describe a specimen. There are one or 

 two slips, which may as well be pointed out in this description for correction in a 

 susbsequent edition. The "nape" is by no means the same as the " occiput;" 

 witness such names as Parus nuchalis (p. 49) and Ixulus occipitalis (p. 217). The 

 space allowed for the " abdomen " is too large, seeing that the " breast" is gene- 

 rally supposed to be the portion of the body overlying the sternum, and the "fore- 

 neck " and " chest" are entirely omitted in Mr. Oates's vocabulary, his " breast " 

 being occupied by what we ourselves call the "lower throat,'' "fore-neck," and 

 " chest." Similarly, the portion which he calls the " back " we should divide 

 into the " mantle," or " interscapular) - region," "upper" and "lower" back. 

 Mr. Oates fully recognises these divisions in his descriptions (Cf. Dendrocitta 

 frontalis, p. 33, &c) We also regret to see that he once more introduces the term 

 " tertiaries" instead of " innermost secondaries." The former term implies that 

 these quills spring from a separate bone of the wing. 



In his primary classification, Mr. Oates has adopted the main divisions recently 

 proposed by Mr. Seebohm from a revision which the latter gentleman has been 

 making of the general characters of the class Aves. For the last two years 

 Mr. Seebohm has been revising and collating all the work of recent ornithologists, 

 and has by the most careful study, discovered many new points which bear on the 

 classification of birds ; so that of all the schemes for the arrangement of the higher 

 orders of birds, this new one of Mr. Seebohm's seems to us to be most worthy of 

 general acceptance. Mr. Oates briefly explains the leading character's of the 

 Passeres (with which alone this volume deals), and illustrates the leading features 

 of the order with a capital selection of wood-cuts, the skull of the Raven being 

 figured to show the iEgithognathous palate. This figure is far more characteris- 

 tic than the one which illustrates Professor Huxley's determination of the 

 iEgithognathous palate in the " Proceedings" for 1S67. Then on pp. 8, 9, 

 Mr. Oates gives a " Scheme " — i.e., a "Key" — for the determination of the Families 

 of Passerine Birds, with which we could at first find no fault, as it was evidently 

 an artificial or student's " Key," until we turned over the pages of the book and 

 found that the author had conscientiously followed the minor details of the 

 " Key," and had adopted the order into which the families had dropped under the 

 artificial arrangement which he had elaborated for their identification. The 

 result of these characterisations is that the Titmice disappear as a family, Paridae 

 altogether, being absorbed in the Corvidce ; the Timeliidce, the "waste-paper 

 basket" (test Tristram) of ornithologist, likewise vanish, and are replaced by the 

 Cruteropodidce, which is, as a friend of ours would say, the same monkey on 

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