THE CLASSIFICATION OF BIRDS, 261 
connected ; manubrium not bifurcated ; keel deep, posteriorly 
rounded and without indentations; bill always long and 
slender, gape always narrow; hand very long and humerus 
very short; no semitendinosus or accessory semitendinosus ; only 
a left carotid present ; no ceca. 
The enormous suborder Passeres, which contains upwards of 
6200 species, is divisible into two sections, distinguished as 
Acromyodi (or Oscines) and Mesomyodi. 
In the former the intrinsic muscles of the syrinx are 
fixed to the ends of the bronchial semirings; while in the 
Mesomyodi they are fixed to the middle of the bronchial 
semirings 1. 
The section Acromyodi is much the larger one, and may be 
said to contain no less than thirty-nine families of Birds. 
These families and all the families of Passeres have been 
limited and arranged by us in accordance with the views of 
Dr. R. Bowdler Sharpe, F.L.8., most kindly communicated to 
us, and they will stand in the order adopted by him, though 
it is impossible to arrange them, any more than the orders of 
Birds (and for the same reason), in any satisfactory linear series 
The student will see that the family and subfamily names are 
modifications of the names of the various genera which are 
respectively the types of such families. 
Thus the first family Corvide is the family of the Crows. 
The second is Paradiseide, or Birds of Paradise. The third is 
Prilonorhynchide, or the Bower-birds. The fourth is Sturnide, 
or the true Starlings; while the Tree-starlings, Hulabetide, 
form the fifth family. The sixth family, Hurycerotide, is 
constituted by a single genus and, as yet, a single species—the 
Blue-bill. Birds called Drongos, Dicruride’, form the seventh 
family; the eighth, Orzolide, being constituted by the Orioles. 
The ninth, Jeteride, is made up of the Cassiques and Hangnests, 
and the tenth, Ploceide, of the Weaver-birds. The eleventh family 
is that of the Tanagers, Tanagridew; and the twelfth is composed 
of the American Creepers, Cawrebide. To these succeed the 
Sandwich-Island Honey-eaters, Drepanidide. The great family 
of Finches *, Fringillide, comes next; while the Larks *, Alau- 
dide, and the Wagtails ° and Pipits, Motacillide, make up the 
1 Page 214, 2 See ante, p. 122. 
SE PLOS, “oP LOO! Pelee 
