ORNITHOLOGY 



29 



on each side and isattai hed to the sternum. 3 The fourth pair, the 

 breves, is the smallest of all, and, arising near 

 the middle of the lower end of the trachea, has its fibres inserted 

 on the extremity of the first of the incomplete rings of the bronchi. 

 The fifth pair, the tensores anteriores, originates like the last from 

 the middle of the trachea, but is somewhat larger and thicker, 

 appearing as though made up of several small muscles in close 

 contact, and by some ornithotomists is believed to be of a com- 

 posite nature. Its direction is obliquely downward ami forward, 

 and, attached by a broad base to the last ring of the trachea and 

 cartilage immediately below, reaches the first or second of the half- 

 rings of the bronchi — in the normal Oscines at their extremity, 

 but, in another section of that group, which it will be necessary to 

 mention later, it is found to he attached to their middle. There 

 is no question of its being by the action of the syringeal muscles 

 just described that the expansion of the bronchi, both as to length 

 and diameter, is controlled, and, as thereby the sounds uttered by 

 the Bird are modified, they are properly called the Song-muscles. 



It must not be supposed that the muscles just defined 

 were first discovered by Miiller; on the contrary they had 

 been described long before, and by many writers on the 

 anatomy of Birds. To say nothing of foreigners, or the 

 authors of general works on the subject, an excellent 

 account of them had been given to the Linnean Society 



Yarrell. by Yarrell in 1829, and published with elaborate figures 

 in its Transactions (xvi. pp. 305-321, pis. 17, 18), an 

 abstract of which was subsequently given in the article 

 "Raven" in his History of British Birds, and Macgillivray 

 also described and figured them with the greatest accuracy 

 ten years later in his work with the same title (ii. pp. 21-37, 

 pis. x.-xii.), while Blyth and Nitzsch had (as already 

 mentioned) seen some of their value in classification. But 

 Midler has the merit of clearly outstriding his predecessors, 

 and with his accustomed perspicuity made the way even 

 plainer for his successors to see than he himself was able 

 to see it. What remains to add is that the extraordinary 

 celebrity of its author actually procured for the first 

 portion of his researches notice in England (Ann. j\~<it. 

 History, xvii. p. 499), though it must be confessed not 

 then to any practical purpiose ; but more than thirty years 

 after there appeared an English translation of his treatise 

 by Prof. Jeffrey Bell, with an appendix by Garrod con- 

 taining a summary of the latter's own continuation of the 

 same line of research, and thus once more Mr Sclater, for 

 it was at his instigation that the work was undertaken, 

 had the satisfaction of rendering proper tribute to one 

 who by his investigations had so materially advanced the 

 study of Ornithology. 2 



Cornay. It is now necessary to revert to the year 1842, in which Pi 

 CORNAY of Rochefort communicated to the French Academy of 

 Sciences a memoir on a new Classification of Birds, of which, how- 

 ever, nothing but a notice has been preserved (Comptes Bendus, 

 xiv. p. 164). Two years later this was followed by a second contri- 

 bution from him on the same subject, and of this only an extract 

 appeared in the official organ of the Academy [ut supra, xvi. pp. 

 94, 95), though an abstract was inserted in one scientific journal 

 (L'Institut, xii. p. 21), and its first portion in another {Journal des 

 Vicouvertes, i. p. 250). The Revue Zoologique for 1847 (pp. 360-369) 

 contained the whole, and enabled naturalists to consider the merits 

 of the author's project, which was to found a new Classification of 

 Birds on the form of the anterior palatal bones, which he declared 

 to be subjected more evidently than any other to certain fixed laws. 

 These laws, as formulated by him, are that (1) there is a coincidence 

 of form of the anterior palatal and of the cranium in Birds of the 

 same Order ; (2) there is a likeness between the anterior palatal 

 bones in Birds of the same Order ; (3) there are relations of likeness 

 between the anterior palatal bones in groups of Birds which are 

 near to one another. These laws, he added, exist in regard to all 



1 According to Blyth (i[urj. Xat. History, ser. 2, ii. p. 264), 

 Yarrell ascertained that this pair of muscles was wanting in "the 

 mina genus" (qu. Graculal), a statement that requires attention 

 either for confirmation or contradiction. 



2 The title of the English translation is Johannes Mutter on < 'ertain 

 Variations in (lie Vocal Organs of the Passeres tluit have hitherto 

 escaped notice. It was published at Oxford in 1878. By some 

 unaccountable accident, the date of the original communication to the 

 Academy of Berlin is wrongly printed. It has been rightly given 

 above. 



parts that off r characters fit for the methodical arrangement of 

 Birds, but it is in regard to the anterior palatal bone thai they 

 unquestionably offer the most evidence. In the evolution of these 

 laws Dr Cornay had most laudably studied, as his observations 

 prove, a vast number of different types, and the upshot of his whole 

 labours, though not very clearly stated, was such as to wholly sub- 

 vert the classification at that time generally adopted by French 

 ornithologists. He of course knew the investigations of L'Herminier 

 and De Blainville on sternal formation, and lie also seems to have 

 been aware of some ptcrylological differences exhibited by Birds — 

 whether those of Nitzsch or those of Jacquemin is not stated. True 

 it is the latter were never published in full, but it is quite conceiv- 

 able that Dr Cornay may have known their drift. Be thai as it 

 may, he declares that characters drawn from the sternum or the 

 pelvis — hitherto deemed to be, next to the bones of the head, the 

 most important portions of the Bird's framework — are scarcely 

 worth more, from a classificatory point of view, than characters 

 drawn from the bill or the legs ; while ptcrylological considerations, 

 together with many others to which some systematists had attached 

 more or less importance, can only assist, and apparently must never 

 be taken to control, the force of evidence furnished by this bone of 

 all bones — the anterior palatal. 



That Dr Cornay was on the brink of making a discovery of con- 

 siderable merit will by and by appear ; but, with every disposition 

 to regard his investigations favourably, it cannot be said that ho 

 accomplished it. No account need be taken of the criticism which 

 denominated his attempt " unphilosophical and one-sided." nor does 

 it signify that his proposals cither attracted no attention or were 

 grin rally received with indifference. Such is commonly the fate 

 of any deep-seated reform of classification proposed by a compara- 

 tively unknown man, unless it happen to possess some extraordinarily 

 taking qualities, or be explained with an abundance of pictorial 

 illustration. This was not the case here. "Whatever proofs Dr 

 Cornay may have had to satisfy himself of his being on the right 

 track, these proofs were not adduced in sufficient number nor 

 arranged with sufficient skill to persuade a somewhat stiff-necked 

 generation of the truth of his views — for it was a generation whose 

 leaders, in France at any rate, looked with suspicion upon any 

 one who professed to go beyond the bounds which the genius of 

 Cuvier had been unable to overpass, and regarded the notion of 

 upsetting any of the positions maintained by him as verging 

 almost upon profanity. Moreover, Dr Cornay 's scheme was not 

 given to the world with any of those adjuncts that not merely 

 please the eye but are in many eases necessary, for, though on 

 a subject which required for its proper comprehension a series of 

 plates, it made even its final appearance unadorned by a single ex- 

 planatory figure, and in a journal, respectable and well-known in- 

 deed, but one not of the highest scientific rank. Add to all this 

 that its author, in his summary of the practical results of his in- 

 vestigations, committed a grave sin in the eyes of rigid systematists 

 by ostentatiously arranging the names of the forty types which he 

 selected to prove his case wholly without order, and without any 

 intimation of the greater or less affinity any one of them might bear 

 to the rest. That success should attend a scheme so inconclusively 

 elaborated could not be expected. 



The same year which saw the promulgation of the crude scheme 

 just described, as well as the publication of the final researches of 

 M filler, witnessed also another attempt at the classification of Birds, 

 much more limited indeed in scope, but, so far as it went, regarded 

 by most ornithologists of the time as almost final in its operation. 

 Under the vague title of " Ornithologische Notizen " Prof. Cabanis Cabanis. 

 of Berlin contributed to the Archiv fur Naturgcschiehte (xiii. 1, 

 pp. 186-256, 308-352) an essay in two parts, wherein, following 

 the researches of Miiller s on the syrinx, in the course of which 

 a correlation had been shewn to exist between the whole or divided 

 condition of the planla or hind part of the " tarsus," first noticed, 

 as has been said, by Keyscrling and Blasius, and the presence or 

 absence of the perfect song-apparatus, the younger author found an 

 agreement which seemed almost invariable in this respect, and he 

 also pointed out that the planta of the different groups of Birds in 

 which it is divided is divided in different modes, the mode of division 

 being generally characteristic of the group. Such a coincident e of 

 the internal and external features of Birds was naturally deemed a 

 discovery of the greatest value by those ornithologists who thought 

 most highly of the latter, and it was unquestionably of no little 

 practical utility. Further examination also revealed the fact 4 that 



3 On the other hand, Miiller makes several references to the labours 

 of Prof. Cabanis. The investigations of both authors must have 

 been proceeding simultaneously, and it matters little which actually 

 appeared first. 



1 This seems to have been made known by Prof. Cabanis the 

 preceding year to the Gesellschaft der Naturforschender Freunde 

 (cf. Miiller, Slimmorganen der Passerinen, p. 65). Of course the 

 variation to which the number of primaries was subject had not 

 escaped the observation of Nitzsch, but he had scarcely used it as a 

 classificatory character. 



