INTRODUCTION 95 
Turdoid Passeres,” having a wing with ten primaries, the first of which 
is always more or less markedly reduced in size, and to this 21 Families 
are allotted; B. “Tanagroid Passeres,” having a wing with nine primaries, 
the first of which is fully developed and usually very long, and contain- 
ing 10 Families; and C. “Sturnoid Passeres,” having a wing with ten 
primaries, the first of which is “rudimentary,” with only 4 Families. 
The remaining Families, 10 in number, which are not normally 
acromyodian are grouped as Series D. and called “ Formicaroid Passeres.” 
In The Ibis for 1880 (pp. 340-350, 399-411) Mr. Sclater made a 
laudable attempt at a general arrangement of Birds,! trying to harmonize 
the views of ornithotomists with those taken by the ornithologists who 
only study the exterior ; but, as he explained, his scheme is really that 
of Huxley reversed,? with some slight modifications mostly consequent 
on the recent researches of Parker and of Garrod, and (here may be 
added) a few details derived from the author’s own extensive knowledge 
of the Class. Adopting the two Subclasses Carinatzx and Ratitx, he 
recognized 3 “Orders” as forming the latter and 23 the former— 
a number far exceeding any that had of late years met with the ap- 
proval of ornithologists. First of them comes the Passeres, of which 
Mr. Sclater would make four Suborders :—(1) the Acromycdi normales of 
Garrod under the older name of Oscines, to the further subdivision of 
which we must immediately return ; (2) under Huxley’s term Oligomyodi, 
all the Haploophonx, Heteromert and Desmodactyli of Garrod, compre- 
hending 8 Families—Ozxyrhamphidz,? Tyrannidz, Pipridxe, Cotingide, 
Phytotomide, Pittidex,? Philepittide and Eurylemide ;* (3) Tracheophone, 
containing the same groups as in the older scheme, but here combined 
into 3 Families only—Dendrocolaptidx, Formicarvide and Pteroptochide ;° 
and (4) the Acromyodi abnormales of Garrod, now elevated to the rank of 
a Suborder and unhappily called Psruposcines. With regard to the 
Acromyodt normales or Oscines, Mr. Sclater takes what seems to be the 
only reasonable view, when he states that they ‘‘are all very closely 
related to one angther, and, in reality, form little more than one group, 
equivalent to other so-called families of birds,” going on to remark that 
as there are some 4700 known species of them “it is absolutely necessary 
to subdivide them,” and finally proceeding to do this nearly on the 
method of Sundevall’s Tentamen, merely changing the names and position 
of the groups in accordance with a plan of his own set forth in the 
Nomenclator Avium Neotropicaliwm, which he and Mr. Salvin printed in 
1873, making, as did Sundevall, two divisions (according as the hind 
part of the “tarsus” is plated or scaled), A. Laminiplantares and B. 
Scutiplantares—but confining the latter to the Alaudidz alone, since the 
other Families forming Sundevall’s Scutelliplantares are not Oscinine, nor 
1 An abstract of this was read to the British Association at Swansea in the same 
year, and may be found in its Report (pp. 606-609). 
2 A matter of no moment whatever, provided that the ascending or descending 
order be preserved throughout, and not intermixed as slovenly writers are wont. 
3 Not recognized by Garrod. 
4 To these Mr. Sclater has now (Cat. B. Br. Mus. xiv. p. 2) added Forbes’s Xenicide. 
5 Mr. Sclater has since admitted (op. cit. xv. p. 2) the Conopophagidxe of Garrod 
(Proc. Zool. Soc. 1877, p. 452). 
