Historical Remarks on the Distinction between Singing Birds 



and Magpies, and asserted that it was generally present in the Passerines with the 

 exception of the Swifts [Ci/pselus), Goatsuckers, and Kingfishers, which, like many 

 birds not placed among Passerines, but belonging to the Accijjiires, Scansores, and 

 Paimijjedes, possess only a single median muscle on either side of the lower larynx. 

 Tiedemann^ and Meckel -^ confirmed these results, but pursued the subject no further. 

 Savart^ confirmed them in essential points, but did pursue the subject; he described six 

 muscles, three anterior and three posterior pairs, in the Ravens, Shrikes, and Starlings, and 

 five (two anterior pairs) in the Thrushes and Larks. In Naumann's work on the Birds of 

 Germany, Nitzsch pointed out the presence of the muscular organ of voice in every genus 

 of European Songster which he had been able to examine. In his difierent ornithological 

 Essays, for example in those on the nasal glands of birds ^ and on the carotids ■', in his 

 Anatomical Appendices to Naumann's work ", in his posthumous notes [Article ' Passerinen ' 

 by Burmeister, in Ersch and Gruber's Encyclopaedia], and in his Pterylographie'', he 

 attempts to separate those Passerines which do not possess this complex organ of voice, 

 but possess only one muscle, like the majority of the Scansores, from the Singing Birds 

 or Passerines, and to unite them with the Scansores into one order of Wood-peckers 

 (Spechtvogel) or Picnriae. He sought eagerly after other osteological, splanchiiological, 

 and angeiological characters of Singing Birds ; and in this way many interesting peculi- 

 arities in and differences among them were brought to light. But it can be seen at the same 

 time that no one of these characters is absolute, and that there are important exceptions 

 to each of them. Many birds, in which the muscular organ of voice is absent, have the 

 manubrium of the sternum bifurcate, as AmpeUs, Gi/mnocephalus, Ritpicola, Pipra, Fttrnarius, 

 Thamnophilus, Tyramms, Maenia, and many others. No Passerine, it is well known, with two 

 notches on each side of the sternum, possesses the muscular organ of voice ; but the sternum 

 of very many Passerines, in which I have not found the muscular organ of voice, has 

 only one notch on each side, e. g. Eurylaimus, Ampells, Gi/nmocejihabis, Psaris, Pachijrhamplius, 

 Phibalura, Rttpicola, Pipra, Ti/rannus, Maenia, Myiobius, Fluvicola, Thamnophilus, Myiothera, 

 Tiuactor, Furnaritis, Cinclodes, Chamaeza, Conopophaga, Synallaxis, Xenops, Anahates, Dendro- 

 eolaptes, and others. 



' Zoologie. II. Band. Heidelberg, 1810, p. 669. 



- Syst. d. vergl. Anat. VI. Halle, 1833, p. 488. 



^ Froriep's Notizen. XVI. Band. 1826, N. 331. 



* Meckels Deutsches Arehiv f. d. Physiologie, VT. 234. 



° Obs. de avium arteria carotide communi. Halae, 1829. 4. 



^ Naturgescbichte der Viigel Deutschlands. Leipz. 1822. 



' System der Pterylographie. Halle, 1840. 4. 



