EEMAEKS. 



The lists of the hirds examined, which have been given, make it unnecessary to 

 name separately those genera for which we have to wait, and the examination of which 

 is desirable ; they are principally Australian, Polynesian, and some East Indian genera 

 alsOj specially from the Himalayas and the Sunda Islands. 



What is now most wanted is a knowledge of the larynx of the Ant-birds of the Old 

 World Pitta and its allies ; the planta is undivided, as it apj)ears to be in the Singing Birds 

 only of the Old Worlds but the Piitidae are separated from the other Singing Birds by 

 having ten complete primaries. According to a memoir by Herr Cabanis in the Gesellscliaft 

 Naturforschender Freunde, for August i8, 1846^ Singing Birds have either only nine remiges 

 on the manus, the first being completely wanting, or if present it is short. Since the 31aenu- 

 ridae, the larynx in which conforms to the type of the Singing Birds, are an exception to 

 this rule ; and since further the small size of the first primary in Singing Birds, if it is 

 present, does not indicate any sharply marked distinction, inasmuch as in the Shrikes also 

 the first feather is not unfrequently more or less diminished in size ; it may be that iu 

 this external feature, just as in the investment of the foot, we must not expect any absolute 

 character, which will hold for all cases, as afiecting internal structure. In any case we 

 must look with eagerness for the internal structure of Pitta. Maenura has two series 

 of plates on the back of the tarsus, like the Larks and some TracheojjJwnes. 



I shall from time to time publish lists of lately examined genera of birds, and their 

 larynges, so far as I shall be able to do so by the aid of fresh material. I hope the 

 conviction that birds' skins without corresponding examples in spirits are now of little 

 use, and that the latter are of greater value, will be made widely known among 

 collectors. 



