that connect the Orders and Families of Birds. 46 1 



though with gigantic dimensions, the exact bill of the Ani. The 



series of affinity, in which the Scansores are united, thus returns 



into itself. 



§ 5. Tenuirostres. 



The genus Certhia, as originally instituted by Linnaeus, con- 

 tained, besides the true Certhia and its congeners, which form 

 the extreme family of the preceding tribe, all those birds whose 

 slender and gradually curved bills, and delicate formation of 

 body, added to their practice of employing their tongues in 

 taking their food, indicated a strong affinity to each other, and 

 which have since been particularized by authors under the va- 

 rious names of Nectarinia, Cinnyris, Dreponis, Sec. To the 

 .group thus known and described by the Swedish naturalist, 

 later ornithologists, who have strictly followed his steps, have 

 added another, discovered since his time in Australasia, similar 

 in habits and manners, and now distinguished by the generic 

 title of Meliphaga. The whole of the birds, however, thus united 

 by close affinities, and as such generally brought together by 

 systematic writers into one conterminous series, are decidedly 

 divisible into two distinct groups, naturally arranging them- 

 selves under different subdivisions of the order. The family of 

 Certhiadce, as we have seen above, live upon animal food ; while 

 the remaining genera of the Linnean Certhia subsist chiefly upon 

 vegetable juices. The tongues of each, though similar in being 

 more or less extensible, and in being the medium through which 

 they are supplied with food, are equally distinct as the nature of 

 the food itself. Those of the former are sharp, and of a spear- 

 like form, as if to transfix the insects which are their prey ; while 

 those of the latter are divided into tubular filaments, which ap- 

 pear exclusively adapted to the purposes of suction. In other 

 particulars they exhibit an equal difference. The Certhiadct 

 climb, and their feet are of a conformable structure : but the feet 



3o2 of 



