OENITHOLOI! Y 



49 



years later, wherein {Monthly Miavsc. Journal, 1872, p. 



217) he says, " The Crow is the great sub-rational chief of 

 established the whole kingdom of the Birds ; he has the largest brain ; 



by size 

 of brain, 



ami by 

 character 



the most wit and wisdom;" and again, in the Zoological 

 Society's Transactions (ix. p. 300), " In all respects, physio- 

 logical, 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 ' Carinatae.' " 



It is to be supposed that the opinion so strongly expressed 

 in the passage last cited has escaped the observation of 

 recent systematizers ; for he would be a bold man who 

 would venture to gainsay it. Still Prof. Parker has left 

 untouched or only obscurely alluded to one other considera- 

 tion that has been here brought forward in opposing the 

 claim of the Turdidx, 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 ( 'orvidx 

 fulfil as completely as is possible for any group of Birds 

 to do the obligations required by exalted rank. To the 

 ofplumage. ma g n ; t , u i e f ^eir brain beyond that of all other Birds 

 Prof. 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 Corridx — the Pies and Jays. 

 In one species of Corvus, and that (as might be expected) 

 the most abundant, namely, the Rook, C. frit>/i!<yu<, 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 It may be conceded that even 

 among Oscines - there are some other groups or sections of 



1 One of these specimens has been figured by Mr Han k i-V. 11. 



Trims. Northwmb. and Durham, vi. pi. 3); see also Yarrell's British 

 Birds, ed. 4, ii. pp. 302, 303. 



2 In other Ordeis there are many, for instance some Humming- 

 birds and Kingfishers ; but this only seems to shew the excellence in 

 those Orders attained by the forms which enjoy the privilege. 



groups in which the transformation in appearance from 

 youth to full age is as slight. This is so among the 

 Paridse ; and there are a few groups in which the \ 

 prior to the first moult, may be more brightly tinted than 

 afterwards, as in the genera Phplloscopus and Anthus. 

 These anomalies cannot be explained as yet, but we see that 

 they do not extend to more than a portion, and generally a 

 small portion, of the groups in which they occur ; whereas 

 in the Crows the likeness between young and old is, so far 

 as is known, common to every member of the Family. It 

 is therefore confidently that the present writer asserts, as 

 Prof. Parker, with far more right to speak on the subject, 

 has already done, that at the head of the Class Aves must 

 stand the Family Corvidss, of which Family no one will 

 dispute the superiority of the genus Corvus, nor in that 

 genus the pre-eminence of Corvus corax — the widely ranging 

 Raven of the Northern Hemisphere, the Bird perhaps best 

 known from the most ancient times, and, as it happens, 

 that to which belongs the earliest historical association 

 with man. There are of course innumerable points in 

 regard to the. Classification of Birds which are, and for a 

 long time will continue to be, hypothetical as matters of 

 opinion, but this one seems to stand a fact on the firm 

 ground of proof. 



1 Muing the compilation of much of the present article 

 the writer flattered himself with the hope that he might at 

 its conclusion have been able to give a graphic illustration 

 of the way in which the various groups of Birds may be 

 conceived to be related to one another in the form of a 

 map, such as has been so usefully furnished by several of 

 his more gifted brethren in regard to other Classes or 

 portions of Classes of the Animal Kingdom. This hope 

 he has been reluctantly constrained to abandon, — whether 

 from the inherent difficulty, perhaps impossibility, of at 

 present executing the task, or from his own want of charto- 

 graphical skill, it is not for him to say. He may, however, 

 be allowed to express the belief that there is no group in 

 Animated Nature that more assuredly deserves the further 

 attention of the highest zoological intellects than Birds : 

 and, looking to the perplexities which on all sides beset 

 their scientific study, there is no department of Zoology 

 that will better repay the application of those intellects 

 than Ornithology. (a. n.) 



