ii8 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS 



him to it. In one of the earlier treatises of the late Prof. Parker, he has 

 expressed {Trans. Zool. Soc. v. p. 150) his approval of Macgillivray's views, 

 adding that, " as that speaking, singing, mocking animal, Man, is the 

 culmination of the Mammalian series, so that bird in which the gifts of 

 speech, song and mockery are combined must be considered as the top and 

 crown of the bird-class." Any doubt as to which Bird is here intended 

 is dispelled by another passage, written ten years later, wherein (M. 

 Microscop. Journ. 1872, p. 217) he says, "The Crow is the great sub- 

 rational chief of the whole kingdom of the Birds ; he has the largest 

 brain ; the most wit and wisdom ;" and again, in the Zoological Society's 

 Transactions (ix. p. 300), " In all respects, physiological, morphological 

 and ornithological, the Crow may be placed at the head, not only of its 

 own great series (birds of the Crow-form), but also as the unchallenged 

 chief of the whole of the ' Carinatye.'"^ 



It is to be supposed that the opinion so strongly expressed in the 

 passage last cited has escaped the observation of many systematizers ; for he 

 would be a bold man who would venture to gainsay it. Still Parker has 

 left untouched or only obscurely alluded to one other consideration that 

 has been here brought forward in opposing the claim of the Turdidse, and 

 therefore a few words may not be out of place on that point — the evidence 

 afforded by the coloration of plumage in young and old. Now the Corvidas 

 fulfil as completely as is possible for any group of Birds to do the obliga- 

 tions required by exalted rank.^ To the magnitude of their brain beyond 

 that of all other Birds Parker has already testified, and it is the rule for 

 their young at once to be clothed in a plumage which is essentially that 

 of the adult. This plumage may lack the lustrous reflexions that are 

 only assumed when it is necessary for the welfare of the race that the 

 wearer should don the best apparel, but then they are speedily acquired, 

 and the original difference between old and young is of the slightest. 

 Moreover, this obtains even in what we may fairly consider to be the 

 weaker forms of the Gorvidee — the Pies and Jays. In one species of 

 Gorvus, and that (as might be expected) the most abundant, namely, the 

 Rook, G. frugilegus, very interesting cases of what would seem to be 

 explicable on the theory of Reversion occasionally though rarely occur. 

 In them the young are more or less spotted with a lighter shade, and 

 these exceptional cases, if rightly understood, do but confirm the rule.^ 



1 Dr. Stejneger (Stand. Nat. Hist. iv. p. 482) considers that Parker liimself has 

 "partly neutralized, not to say gainsaid " this opinion, citing a passage from the 

 same paper [torn. cit. p. 304) wherein ?.s the assertion that the Redstart, Pluenicura 

 ruticilla, and its allies, which of course come near the Thrushes, " are of the highest 

 and purest blood," with more to like effect. But Dr. Stejneger has overlooked the 

 qualifying words "of the small Passerines " at the beginning of the paragraph, which 

 makes all the difference, seeing that the Corvidtv are the largest of them. Moreover, 

 the drift of the whole passage shews that Parker was therein using the word 

 "'Oscines,' or songsters," in its literal and not its techiiical sense. No one knows 

 better than Dr. Stejneger that Crows are not exactly song-birds. 



" It is curious to remarlc, not that it can :ifrect my argument, that this was also 

 the opinion of the Quinarians (cf. Swainson, in 1834, Discourse on the Study of Nat. 

 Hist. p. 262, and in 1835, Treatise on the Geogr. and Classific. of Atiimals, p. 243). 



* One of these specimens has been figured by Hancock (N. H. Trans. Northuvd). 

 and Durham, vi. pi. 3) ; see also Yarrell's British Birds, ed. 4, ii. pp. 302, 303. 



