1I8 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS 
him to it. In one of the earlier treatises of the late Prof. Parker, he has 
expressed (Trans. Zool. Soc. v. p. 150) his approval of Macgillivray’s views, 
adding that, “as that speaking, singing, mocking animal, Man, is the 
culmination of the Mammalian series, so that bird in which the gifts of 
speech, song and mockery are combined must be considered as the top and 
crown of the bird-class.” Any doubt as to which Bird is here intended 
is dispelled by another passage, written ten years later, wherein (M. 
Microscop. Journ. 1872, p. 217) he says, “The Crow is the great sub- 
rational chief of the whole kingdom of the Birds; he has the largest 
brain ; the most wit and wisdom ;” and again, in the Zoological Society’s 
Transactions (ix. p. 800), “In all respects, physiological, 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 ‘ Carinate.’”? 
It is to be supposed that the opinion so strongly expressed in the 
passage last cited has escaped the observation of many systematizers ; for he 
would be a bold man who would venture to gainsay it. Still Parker has 
left untouched or only obscurely alluded to one other consideration that 
has been here brought forward in opposing the claim of the Turdide, 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 Corvide 
fulfil as completely as is possible for any group of Birds to do the obliga- 
tions required by exalted rank.2 To the magnitude of their brain beyond 
that of all other Birds 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 Corvide—the Pies and Jays. In one species of 
Corvus, and that (as might be expected) the most abundant, namely, the 
Rook, ©. frugilegus, 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 Dr. Stejneger (Stand. Nat. Hist. iv. p. 482) considers that Parker himself has 
‘partly neutralized, not to say gainsaid” this opinion, citing a passage from the 
same paper (tom. cit. p. 804) wherein is the assertion that the Redstart, Phenicura 
ruticilla, and its allies, which of course come near the Thrushes, “are of the highest 
and purest blood,” with more to like effect. But Dr. Stejneger has overlooked the 
qualifying words ‘‘of the small Passerines” at the beginning of the paragraph, which 
makes all the difference, seeing that the Corvide are the largest of them. Moreover, 
the drift of the whole passage shews that Parker was therein using the word 
‘«*Oscines,’ or songsters,” in its literal and not its technical sense. No one knows 
better than Dr. Stejneger that Crows are not exactly song-birds. 
2 Tt is curious to remark, not that it can affect my argument, that this was also 
the opinion of the Quinarians (¢f. Swainson, in-1834, Discourse on the Study of Nat. 
Hist. p. 262, and in 1885, Treatise on the Geogr. and Classific. of Animals, p. 243). 
3 One of these specimens has been figured by Hancock (WV. H. Trans. Northwmb. 
and Durham, vi. pl. 8); see also Yarrell’s British Birds, ed. 4, ii. pp. 802, 303. 
