SCRUB-BIRD 



821 



on the eastern side of Australia some other examples, which 

 proved the existei\ce of a second species, described by Mr. Ramsay 

 {op. cit. 1866, pp. 438-440) as A. rufescens ; bnt still no suspicion 

 of the great divergence of the genus from the ordinary Passerine 

 type was raised, and it was generally regarded as belonging to the 

 Maluridx or Australian Warblers. However, the peculiar forma- 

 tion of the sternum in Atriclioriiis — as the genus has to be called, 

 since Atrichia had long been preoccupied in zoology ^ — attracted 

 the present writer's attention almost as soon as that of A. damosa 

 was exhibited in the museum of the College of Surgeons, and at 



Atpjchornis clamosa. (After Gould.) 



his request Mr. Ramsay a little later sent to the museum of the 

 University of Cambridge examples in spirit of A. rufescens, which 

 shewed a similar structure. The Scrub-birds were consequently 

 declared in 1875 (Eiici/clop. Brit. ed. 9, iii. p. 741) to form a distinct 

 Family, Atrichiidx, standing, so far as was known, alone with the 

 Lyre-birds as " abnormal Fasseres." ^ Much the same view was also 

 taken by Garrod, who (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1876, pp. 516, 518, pi. Iii. 



1 This fact seems to have been detected by Dr. Stejneger (Stand. Nat. Hist. 

 iv. P21. -159, 4G2). 



- Mr. Sclater {Ibis, 1874, p. 191, note) remarked on the peculiar form of 

 sternum ; but, writing doubtless from memory, ascribed to it two emarginations 

 on each side of tlie posterior end, which it has not. The sternum is fairly 

 figured and briefly described by Eyton in 1874 [Ostcol. Av. Suppl. ii. pi. 20, 



