THE ZOOLOGY OF BRITISH IXDIi.. 165 



^arts inter se are excessively difficult to classify in a satisfactory 

 manner — Dr. Jerdon, following nearly the ordinary English arrange- 

 ment, divides the numerous Indian representatives of this tribe into 

 six families — LaniidaB, Muscicapidas, Merulidse, Brachypodidaa, 

 Sylviidae, and AmpelidsB. Each of these families is again sub-divided 

 into several sub-families. The limits of this Journal, will, we fear, 

 hardly allow us to follow Dr. Jerdon into the discussion of all these 

 divisions. "We shall merely observe therefore that the Indian 

 Dentirostres, recorded in the present work, are no less than 202 in 

 number, and that there is no doubt that, while future researches 

 may lead to the abolition of some of the so-called species, numerous 

 others still undiscovered await the researches of future Onitho- 

 logists, particularly in the less explored districts of our Indian 

 possessions. 



In the like manner of the tribe Conirostres, embracing the 

 families Corvidae, Sturnidae, and Eringillidae, altogether numbering 

 some 110 species, we shall say but little. As regards the two first 

 of these families they are both well-marked groups, and there can 

 be little doubt about their limits. The Finches (Fringillidse) taken 

 per se are likewise a very natural family, but before considering 

 them in this light, we must isolate the anomalous Larks (Alaudidae) 

 which Dr. Jerdon, not without formidable precedents in his favour, 

 annexes to them, and give them the rank of a very distinct family 

 of Insessorial birds. 



Dr. Jerdon' s third and last volume, which we now enter upon, 

 commences with the Order Gemitores — more familiarly known to us 

 under Latham's name Columbse. Following Bonaparte — much too 

 closely for our taste — our author divides the Indian members of this 

 group into three families. The Fruit-pigeons (Carpophagidse), the 

 Typical Pigeons (Columbidse), and the Ground Pigeons (PhapidsB), 

 The Fruit-pigeons of the Eastern Tropics form — there can be no 

 doubt — a well-marked section of the Columbine Order — distin- 

 guished by their frugivorous habits and fourteen tail-feathers. Of 

 this group there are eleven representatives in India. Of the true 

 Pigeons, Dr. Jerdon enumerates sixteen Indian species, dividing 

 them, according to our ideas, as also the Fruit-pigeons, into far too 

 many generic sections. But in this, as in other cases, he has 

 been misled by Bonaparte, who in the latter years of his life 

 strove to solace the paroxysms of the fierce disease under which 

 he laboured by coining new and unnecessary scientific terms in 



