Passerine birds which did not well agree with the best known 
European or American types to the neighbourhood of the genus 
Timelia, and of founding a subfamily or even a Family for them, 
was at first harmless, and, indeed, where new forms of the Indian 
Fauna like Stachyris and others were concerned was praiseworthy ; 
but the practice was presently abused and 
its reduction to absurdity effected in the 
Sixth and Seventh volumes of the British 
Museum Catalogue of Birds, wherein toler- 
ably homogeneous groups of various kinds 
that had long been accepted by system- 
atists were broken up and flung upon the 
heap—the Troglodytide (WREN), for in- 
stance, were referred to the Timeliidex, 
whereas if their union were necessary the 
Timelias should have been referred to the Wrens. The sole 
character all these birds were supposed to possess in common 
was one shared by many others that were excluded, namely, wings 
short, rounded and “concave,” so as to fit close to the body, the last 
epithet being intended to signify that the remiges were incurved.' 
STACHYRIS THORACICA. 
(After Swainson.) 
TINAMOU, the name given in Guiana to a certain bird as 
stated in 1741 by Barrere (France Equinowiale, p. 138), from whom 
it was taken and used in a more general sense by Buffon (//ist. Nat. 
Ois. iv. p. 502). In 1783 Latham (Synops. ii. p. 724) adopted it as 
English, and in 1790 (Index, i. p. 633) Latinized it Zinamus, as the 
name of a new and distinct genus. The “Tinamou” of Barrere 
has been identified with the ‘“‘ Macucagua ” described and figured by 
Maregrave in 1648, and is the 7inamus major of modern authors.” 
1 Tt is due to Dr. Sharpe to observe that he indicates (op. cit. vii. p. 1) the 
existence of some hidden power against which he was helpless, and that his 
‘Group VIII. Timelie” (p. 504) does not differ very much from that which Mr. 
Oates subsequently tried with some success to define as a subfamily Timediine 
(with 25 genera found in India alone) of Crateropodide# ; but even that ‘“‘ Group” 
still includes forms that it is impossible to believe are allied, and the Doctor, 
in his Address to the International Congress of 1891 (p. 87), though referring 
with approval to Mr. Oates’s attempt, and adopting a few other modifications, 
stated that he was ‘‘not prepared at the present moment to reconsider the 
Timeliide.” Out of a heap of road-sweepings a skilful gardener will make a 
compost that shall produce fragrant flowers, while untended it remains a bed 
that grows nothing but noisome weeds. Let us hope that Dr. Sharpe, with 
the extraordinary resources at his command, will one day treat this festering 
mass so as to obtain from it results that will cause the former unhappy failure 
to be forgotten and a crop of fair blooms secured that will be worthy of him, 
for a solution of the Timelian difficulty will indeed be a great feat. 
2 Brisson and after him Linneus confounded this bird, which they had never 
seen, with the TRUMPETER. 
