60 John Hogg, Esq., on the Classification of Birds. 



ceding it, will be distinctly apparent. In the Raptores, as I 

 have before said, the diurnal rapacious birds are connected 

 with the nocturnal by the genera Strigiceps (the owl-harrier) 

 and Surnia (funerea or hawk-owl) ; again, the Prehensores 

 are approximated to the latter by Strigops, or the owUpar- 

 rot; and the Insessores are directly allied to the Prehensores 

 by the scansorial genera (amongst others) Oxylophus, which 

 in some respects exhibits an affinity to Plyctolophus, and 

 Picus, which bears no great dissimilarity of plumage from cer- 

 tain of the parrots (Psittacus). Lastly, the more ordinary 

 division of the toes of the true Insessores is then approached 

 through Sitta, and other genera of the Scansores that are 

 furnished with three toes before and one behind. 



Myjirst tribe, Curvirostres, is derived from the somewhat 

 slender and generally curved beak of the cuckoos ; whilst my 

 second tribe Cuneirostres, is founded on the strong cuneated 

 or wedge-shaped beak of the woodpeckers, wryneck, nut- 

 hatch, &c. 



Of this tribe the family 2, Apternidce, is constituted for the 

 reception of the three-toed woodpeckers. The genus Apter- 

 nus of Swainson is its type, and is correctly named, for the 

 word signifies without a hind-toe^ or heel ; consequently, 

 this family forms a very rare exception to the groups com- 

 prised in this subclass, and to which I would also refer the 

 foreign species Ficus shorii and P. tiga. Although the hind- 

 toe itself is absent in these birds, yet the outer fore-toe being 

 placed behind, and in the same plane with the others, causes 

 the want of it to be scarcely felt in the functions of walking 

 and climbing. 



Family 3, Sittidoe. I think there is much anomaly in 

 placing, as the English ornithologists do, three genera with 

 such different beaks as the wren^ the hoopoe., and the nut- 

 hatch, in the same family, Certhiadae, and in the same tribe, 

 Scansores ; whilst, in fact, the hoopoe cannot be called a 

 climber. Cuvier'^s System places that genus, and the mit- 

 hatch^ among the Tenuirostres, but the wren among the Den- 

 tirostres ; to this, likewise, there are several objections. 

 Since the genus Sitta differs in its structure from those ge- 

 nera, as well as from the two preceding families, I have, in 



