30 



ORNITHOLOGY 



in certain croups the number of " primaries," or quill-feathers grow- 

 ing from the /nanus or distal segment of the wing, formed another 

 characteristic easy of observation. In the Oscines or Polymyodi of 

 Midler the number was either nine or ten — and if the latter the 

 outermost of them was generally very small. In two of the other 

 groups of which Prof. Cabanis especially treated — groups which had 

 been hitherto more or less confounded with the Oscines — the number 

 of primaries was invariably ten, and the outermost of them was 

 comparatively large. This observation was also hailed as the dis- 

 covery of a fact of extraordinary importance ; and, from the results 

 of these investigations, taken altogether, Ornithology was declared 

 by Sundevall, undoubtedly a man who had a right to speak with 

 authority, to have made greater progress than had been achieved 

 since the days of Cuvier. The final disposition of the " Subclass 

 /,., ..„ ssores" — all the perching Birds, that is to say, which are neither 

 Birds-of-Prey nor Pigeons — proposed by Prof. Cabanis, was into 

 four " Orders," as follows : — 



1. Oscines, equal to Miiller's group of the same name ; 



2. Clamatores, being a majority of that division of the Picarim 

 of Nitzsch, so called by Andreas Wagner, in 1841, ' which have 

 their feet normally constructed ; 



3. Strisores, a group now separated from the Clamatores of 

 Wagner, and containing those forms which have their feet abnor- 

 mally constructed ; and 



4. Scansorcs, being the Grimpeurs of Cuvier, the Zytjoditdyli of 

 several other systematists. 



The first of these four "Orders" had been already indefeasibly 

 established as one perfectly natural, but respecting its details more 

 must presently be said. The remaining three are now seen to be 

 obviously artificial associations, and the second of them, ( lamatorcs, 

 in particular, containing a very heterogeneous assemblage of forms ; 

 but it must be borne in mind that the internal structure of some of 

 them was at that time still more imperfectly known than now. 

 Yet even then enough had been ascertained to have saved what are 

 now recognized as the Families Todidas and Tyrannidse from being 

 placed as " Subfamilies" in the same "Family Colopteridse" ; and 

 several other instances of unharmonious combination in this "Order" 

 might be adduced were it worth while to particularize them. More 

 than that, it would not be difficult to shew, only the present is not 

 exactly the place for it, that some groups or Families which in 

 reality are not far distant from one another are distributed, owing 

 to the dissimilarity of their external characters, throughout these 

 three Orders. Tims the Podarginai are associated with the Coraciidae 

 under the bead Clamatort s, while the ' 'aprimulgidse, to which they 

 are clearly most allied, if they do not form part of that Family 

 (Goatsucker, vol. x. p. 711), are placed with the Strisores ; and 

 again the Musophagidai also stand as Strisores, while the Cuculidm, 

 which modern systematists think to be their nearest relations, are 

 considered to be Scansorcs. 



But to return to the Oscines, the arrangement of which 

 in the classification now under review lias been deemed its 

 greatest merit, and consequently has been very generally 

 followed. That by virtue of the perfection of their vocal 

 organs, and certain other properties — though some of 

 these last have perhaps never yet been made clear enough 

 — they should stand at the head of the whole Class, may 

 here be freely admitted, but the respective rank assigned 

 to the various component Families of the group is certainly 

 open to question, and to the present writer seems, in the 

 methods of several systematists, to be based upon a fallacy. 

 This respective rank of the different Families appears to 

 have been assigned on the principle that, since by reason 

 of one character (namely, the more complicated structure 

 of their syrinx) the Oscines form a higher group than the 

 Clamatores, therefore all the concomitant features which 

 the former possess and the latter do not must be equally 

 indicative of superiority. Now one of the features in 

 which most of the Oscines differ from the lower "Order" 

 is the having a more or less undivided j>l<tnt<t, and accord- 

 ingly it has been assumed that the Family of Oscines in 

 which this modification of the planta is carried to its 

 extreme point must be the highest of that "Order." 

 Since, therefore, this extreme modification of the planta is 



1 Archill far Naturgeschichte, vii. '2, pp. 93, 94. The division 

 seems tn have been instituted by this author a couple of years earlier 

 in the second edition of his Handbuch dec Naturgeschichte (a work 

 not seen by the present writer), but not then to have received a 

 scientific name. It included all Picarisg which had not " zygodacty- 

 lous" feet, that is to say, toes placed in pairs, two before and two 

 behind. 



exhibited by the Thrushes and their allies, it is alleged 

 that they must be placed first, and indeed at the head 

 of all Birds. The groundlessness of this reasoning ought 

 to be apparent to everybody. In the present state of 

 anatomy at any rate, it is impossible to prove that there 

 is more than a coincidence in the facts just stated, and in 

 the association of two characters — one deeply seated and 

 affecting the whole life of the Bird, the other superficially, 

 and so far as we can perceive without effect upon its 

 organism. Because the Clamatores, having no song- 

 muscles, have a divided planta, it cannot be logical to 

 assume that among the Oscines, which possess song-muscles, 

 such of them as have an undivided planta must be higher 

 than those that have it divided. The argument, if it can 

 be called an argument, is hardly one of analogy; and yet 

 no stronger ground has been occupied by those who invest 

 the Thrushes, as do the majority c f modern systematists, 

 with the most dignified position in the whole Class. But 

 passing from general to particular considerations, so soon 

 as a practical application of the principle is made its 

 inefficacy is manifest. The test of perfection of the vocal 

 organs must be the perfection of the notes they enable 

 their possessor to utter. There cannot be a question that, 

 sing admirably as do some of the Birds included among 

 the Thrushes,- the Larks, as a Family, infinitely surpass 

 them. Yet the Larks form the very group which, as has 

 been already shewn (Lark, vol. xiv. p. 314), have the 

 planta more divided than any other among the Oscines. 

 It seems hardly possible to adduce anything that would 

 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 Alaudidx associated. 3 Moreover, this 

 same Family affords a very valid protest against the 

 extreme value attached to the presence or absence of the 

 outermost quill-feather of the wings, and in this work it 

 has been before shewn (ut supra) that almost every stage 

 of magnitude in this feather is exhibited by the Larks from 

 its rudimentary or almost abortive condition in Alauda 

 arvensis to its very considerable development in Melano- 

 corypha calandra. 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 Frof. Cabanis (p. 313) 

 to exist. Some of them it is now easy to explain, inas- 

 much as in a few cases the apparently aberrant genera 

 have elsewhere found a more natural position, a contin- 

 gency 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. 4 Yet 

 the value of his Ornithologische Notizen is great, not only 

 as evidence of his extraordinarily extensive acquaintance 

 with different forms, which is proclaimed in every page, 

 but in leading to a far fuller appreciation of characters 

 that certainly should on no account be neglected, though 



2 Prof. Cabanis would have strengthened his position had he included 

 in the same Family with the Thrushes, which he called Rha- 

 cnemidsc, the Birds commonly known as Warblers, Sylmidse, which the 

 more advanced of recent systematists are inclined with much reason 

 to unite with the Thrushes, Turdidse ; but instead of that he, trusting 

 to the plantar character, segregated the Warblers, including of course 

 the Nightingale, and did not even allow them the second place in his 

 method, putting them below the Family called by him Sylmcolidse, 

 consisting chiefly of the American forms now known as Mniotiltidse, 

 none of wdiich as songsters approach those of the Old World. 



3 It must be observed that Prof. Cabanis does not place the Alaudidx 

 lowest of the seventeen Families of which he makes the Oscines to be 

 composed. They stand eleventh in order, while the Corrida" are last — 

 a matter on which something has to be said in the sequel. 



4 By a curious error, probably of the press, the number of primaries 

 assigned to the Parodist idee and ( 'oroidte is wrong (pp. 334, 335). In 

 each case 10 should be substituted for 19 and 14. 



