190 Mr. P. L. Sclater on the Neotropical 



(of whicli lie constituted an independent family under the name 

 " Rliinomydseae ") to the neighbourhood of the Ant-Thrushes 

 (Formicariidse) , and assigned as their most essential character 

 '' la forme des narines^ toujours recouvertes d^un opercule car- 

 tilagineux bombe, de sorte que Fouverture est au-dessous, 

 comme une fente longitudinale "*. 



Captain King, who was engaged in the survey of the Ma- 

 gellan Straits about the same time, likewise met with one of 

 these singular birds in Patagonia, and designated it in his 

 MS. " Hylactes tarnii," under which name it was described 

 in the 'Proceedings^ of the Zoological Society for 1830-31. 



Besides a few scattered notices and figures, little progress 

 was made towards the right understanding of these birds until 

 1847, when Johann Miiller, in his celebrated article upon the 

 voice-organs of the Passerinse, showed that Scytalopus be- 

 longed to the Tracheophonine section of the Order. Miiller 

 likewise pointed out that Scytalopus, and its near ally Ptero- 

 ptochus, differed from all other Passeres known to him in having 

 a double fissure in the posterior margin of the sternum f. The 

 latter fact, as regards Pteroptochus, had been previously re- 

 cognized by Eyton % ; but Mr. Eyton has not noticed the pe- 

 culiar arrangement of the trachea. 



Following up Mliller's great discovery. Dr. Cabanis, in his 

 ' Ornithologische Notizen,' published shortly afterwards, ar- 

 ranged together all the then known genera of these birds in the 

 Tracheophonine division of the Passeres. Dr. Cabanis, how- 

 ever, did not make a separate family of these birds^ but placed 

 them amongst the Ant-Thrushes, in his family " Eriodoridae.^' 



Bonaparte, in his 'Conspectus^ (1850), followed Cabanis^s 

 classification. 



In 1860, in the second part of the ' Museum Heineanum,^ 

 Dr. Cabanis adopted the more correct view of assigning higher 

 rank in classification to these peculiar birds, and instituted 

 the family " Pteroptochidse " for their reception. Of his 

 family Pteroptoehidse Dr. Cabanis made two subfamilies, 



* Voyage dans I'Amerique Meridionale, Ois. p. 192. 



t Op. ciL p. 41. 



\ Zool. Voy. Beagle, Birds, p. 150. 



