658 ORTOLAN 
‘““YELLOWHEAD,” were referred to the genus, under the names of 
O. allicillat and O. ochrocephala, and then the question of its affinity 
became more interesting. By some systematists it was supposed 
to belong to the otherwise purely Neotropical Dendrocolaptide 
(PicucuLk), and in that case would have been the sole representa- 
tive of the Tracheophone Passeres in the Australian Region. Others 
considered it one of the nearest relatives of Menura, and if that 
view had been correct it would have added a third form to the 
small section of ‘‘PSEUDUSCINES”; while Sundevall, in 1872, 
placed it not far from Zimelia, among a group the proper sorting of 
which will probably for years tax the ingenuity of ornithologists.? 
The late Mr. W. A. Forbes shewed (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1882, p. 544) 
that this last position was the more correct, as Orthonyx proved on 
dissection to be one of the true Oscines, but yet to stand, so far as 
is known, alone among birds of that group, or any other group of 
Passeres, in consequence of the superficial course taken by the (left) 
carotid artery, which is nowhere contained in the subvertebral 
canal. Whether this discovery will require the segregation of the 
genus as the representative of a separate Family Orthonycide— 
—which has been proposed by Mr. Salvin (Catal. Coll. Strickland, 
p- 294)—remains to be seen.? 
The typical species of Orthonyx—for the scientific name has 
been adopted in English—is rather larger than a Skylark, coloured 
above not unlike a Hedge-Sparrow. The wings are, however, 
barred with white, and the chin, throat and breast are in the male 
pure white, but of a bright reddish-orange in the female. The 
remiges are very short, rounded and much incurved, shewing a 
bird of weak flight. The rectrices are very broad, the shafts stiff, 
and towards the tip divested of barbs. Two other species that 
seem rightly to belong to the genus have been described—0. spal- 
dingt from Queensland, of much greater size than the type, and 
with a jet-black plumage, and 0. nove-quinex, from the great island 
of that name. 
ORTOLAN (Old Fr. Hortolan, mod. Fr. Ortolan), the Emberiza 
1 It may be charitably conjectured that the nomenclator intended to write 
albtcapilla. 
2 Dr. Sharpe naturally extended his generous hospitality to Orthonyx and 
placed it in his Zimeliidx (Cat. B. Br. Mus. vii. p. 329), but refused entrance to 
Clitonyx, which Dr. Gadow had therefore to include (op. cit. viii. p. 75) among 
the Paride—a wrong position, according to Sir W. Buller. 
3 Forbes also demonstrated that one at least of the two New-Zealand species 
above mentioned, O. ochrocephala, had been wrongly referred to this genus, and 
they therefore at present stand as Clitonyx. Thisisa point of some little import- 
ance in its bearing on the relationship of the fauna of the two countries, for 
Orthonyx was supposed to be one of the few genera of Land-birds common to 
both, 
