y2 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS 



place for it, that some groups or Families which in reality are not far 

 distant from one another are distributed, owing to the dissimilarity of 

 their external characters, throughout these three Orders. 



But to return to the Oscines, the arrangement of which in the 

 classification now under notice has been deemed its greatest merit, and 

 consequently has been very generally followed. That by virtue of the 

 perfection of their vocal organs, and certain other properties — though 

 some of these last have perhaps never yet been made clear enough — they 

 should stand at the head of the whole Class, may be freely admitted, but 

 the respective rank assigned to the various component Families of the 

 group is certainly open to question, and to the present writer seems, in 

 the methods of several systematists, to be based upon a fallacy. This 

 respective rank of the different Families appears to have been assigned on 

 the principle that, since by reason of one character (namely, the more 

 complicated structure of their syrinx) the Oscines form a higher group 

 than the Glamatores, therefore all the concomitant features which the 

 former possess and the latter do not must be equally indicative of 

 superiority. Now one of the features in which most of the Oscines differ 

 from the lower " Order " is the having a more or less undivided planta, 

 and accordingly it has been assumed that the Family of Oscines in which 

 this modification of the planta is carried to its extreme point must be the 

 highest point of that " Order." Since, therefore, this extreme modification 

 of the planta is exhibited by the Thrushes and their allies, it is alleged 

 that they must be placed first, and indeed at the head of all Birds. The 

 groundlessness of this reasoning ought to be apparent to everybody. In 

 the present state of anatomy at any rate, it is impossible to prove that 

 there is more than a coincidence in the facts just stated, and in the 

 association of two characters — one deeply seated and affecting the whole 

 life of the Bird, the other superficially, and so far as we can perceive 

 without effect upon its organism. Because the Glamatores, having no 

 song-muscles, have a divided planta, it cannot be logical to assume that 

 among the Oscines, which possess song-muscles, such of them as have an 

 undivided ^iZante must be higher than those that have it divided. The 

 argument, if it can be called an argument, is hardly one of analogy ; and 

 yet no stronger ground has been occupied by those who invest the 

 Thrushes, as do the majority of modern systematists, with the most 

 dignified position in the whole Class. But passing from general to par- 

 ticular considerations, so soon as a practical application of the principle 

 is made its inefiicacy is manifest. The test of perfection of the vocal 

 organs must be the perfection of the notes they enable their possessor to 

 utter. There cannot be a question that, sing admirably as do some of 

 the Birds included among the Thrushes,^ the Larks, as a Family, infinitely 

 surpass them. Yet the Larks form the very group which, as elsewhere 



^ Prof. Cabauis would liave strengthened his position had he included in the same 

 Family with the Thrushes, which he called HJiacnemtdie., the birds commonly known 

 as Warblers, Sylviidaz, which tlie more advanced of recent systematists are inclined 

 with much reason to ^mite with the Thrushes, Turdidse ; but instead of that he, 

 trusting to the plant-ar character, segregated the Warblers, including of course the 

 Nightingale, and did not even allow them the second place in his method, putting 



