INTRODUCTION yj 



shewn (Lark, page 511), have the flanta more divided than any other 

 among the Oscines. It seems hardly possible to adduce anything that 

 \yould more conclusively demonstrate the independent nature of each of 

 these characters^ — the complicated structure of the syrinx and the asserted 

 inferior formation of the planta — which are in the Alaudidse associated.^ 

 Moreover, this same Family affords a very valid protest against the ex- 

 treme value attached to the presence or absence of the outermost quill- 

 feather of the wings, and in this work it is also shewn {loc. cit.) that 

 almost every stage of magnitude in this feather is exhibited by the Larks 

 from its almost abortive condition in Alauda to its very considerable 

 development in Mirafra. Indeed there are many genera of Oscines in 

 which the proportion that the outermost " primary " bears to the rest is 

 at best but a specific character, and certain exceptions are allowed by 

 Prof. Cabanis (p. 313) to exist.^ Some of them it is now easy to explain, 

 inasmuch as in a few cases the apparently aberrant genera have elsewhere 

 found a more natural position, a contingency to which he himself was 

 fully awake.^ But as a rule the allocation and ranking of the different 

 Families of Oscines by this author must be deemed arbitrary. Yet the 

 value of his Ornithologische Notizen is great, not only as evidence of his 

 extensive acquaintance with different forms, which is proclaimed in every 

 page, but in leading to a far fuller appreciation of characters that cei-tainly 

 should on no account be neglected, though too much importance may 

 easily be, and already has been, assigned to them.'* 



This will perhaps be the most convenient place to mention another 

 kind of classification of Birds, which, based on a principle wholly different 

 from those that have just been explained, requires a few words, though it 

 has not been productive, nor is it likely, from all that appears, to be pro- 

 ductive of any great effect. So long ago as 1831, Bonaparte, in his 

 Saggio di una distribuzione metodica degli Animali Vertebrati, published at 

 Rome, and in 1837 communicated to the Linnean Society of London, 

 ' A new Systematic Arrangement of Vertebrated Animals,' which was 

 subsequently printed in that Society's Transactions (xviii. pp. 247-304), 

 though before it appeared there was issued at Bologna, under the title of 

 Synopsis Vertebratorum Systematis, a Latin translation of it. Herein he 



them below the Family called by him Sylmcolidae, consisting chiefly of the American 

 forms now known as Mniotiltidse, none of which as songsters approach those of the 

 Old World. 



^ It must be observed that Prof. Cabanis does not place the Alavdidae lowest of 

 the seventeen Families of which he makes the -Oscines to be composed. They stand 

 eleventh in order, while the Corvidae are last — a matter on which something may be 

 said in the sequel. 



^ The American Family Vireonidee (Vireo) presents some notable CKamples, though 

 there it is stated that the tenth primary is always present, but often concealed by the 

 ninth (cf. Coues, Key N. Am. Birds, ed. 2, p. 331). 



^ By a curious error, probably of the press, the number of primaries assigned to 

 the Paradiseidse and Corvidae is wrong (pp. 334, 335). In each case 10 should be 

 substituted for 19 and 14. 



* A more extensive and detailed application of his method was begun by Prof. 

 Cabanis in the 3Iuseum Heineanum, a useful catalogue of specimens in the collection 

 of the late Oberamtmann Heine, of which the first part appeared at Halberstadt in 

 1850, and the last, the work being still unfinished, in 1863. A Nomendator of the 

 same collection was printed at Berlin 1882-90 by its owner's son and Dr. Pieicheuow. 



