266 Observations on the Affinities 



the parrots and pigeons, which may be said to evince a rela- 

 tionship in these groups to the Mammalia : and it is worthy 

 of notice, that as milk is much more copiously secreted by 

 herbivorous mammalians, so the parrots and pigeons are al- 

 most the only birds which, at no period of their life, touch 

 any description of animal food. M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, how- 

 ever, has described a still more curious approach to the Mam- 

 malia on the part of the parrots, which fact may be placed in 

 juxta-position with that of the existence of the rudiments of 

 dentition, in the gums of the foetal toothless whales ; than 

 which it is even more worthy of the attention of the physio- 

 logist. In & foetus of a parroquet, nearly ready for hatching, 

 he found that the margins of the bill were beset with tuber- 

 cles, arranged in a regular order, and having all the exterior 

 appearance of teeth : these tubercles were not, indeed, im- 

 planted in the jaw-bones, but formed part and parcel of the 

 exterior sheath of the bill. Under each tubercle, however, 

 there was a gelatinous pulp, analogous to the pulps which se- 

 crete teeth, but resting on the edge of the maxillary bones, 

 and every pulp was supplied by vessels and nerves, travers- 

 ing a canal in the substance of the bone. These tubercles 

 form the first margins of the mandibles, and their remains are 

 indicated by canals in the horny sheath subsequently formed, 

 which contain a softer material, and which commence from 

 small foramina in the margin of the bone.* 



But waving the consideration of the parrot family, for the 

 present, respecting which it is admitted by the warmest ad- 

 vocates for the theory of universal gradation, that, " if any 

 group in nature be isolated, it is this," and that " possessing 

 in themselves the strongest characteristics, there is no bird 

 yet discovered, which presents any point of connexion to 

 them,"f let us now see if there be not many groups equal- 

 ly isolated, which have been overlooked in consequence of 

 the superficial method of investigation too commonly pursu- 

 ed. An equally distinct group, I aver, is constituted by the 

 multitudinous host of species which agree in possessing the 

 complex vocal apparatus of the raven, in addition to many 

 other peculiar characters ; and I propose to designate this 

 extensive order Cantrices, in preference to Cantatores, re- 

 stricting the latter dissyllabic termination to the divisions of 

 a higher degree of value. The term Cantrices, it may be 

 remarked, has less reference to the actual utterance of song, 

 than to the invariable possession of a peculiarly complicated 



* Anatomie Comparee, tome ii. 193, as quoted in Cycl. Anat. and Phys. 

 by Mr. Owen, vol i. 311. fMag. Zool. and Bot. ii. 554. 



