Notes on the Family Dendrocolaptide. 273 
number 18. Collected 3rd June, 1907, and presented by 
L. H. G. Ramsay, Esq. Five specimens. 
It so happens that all the five specimens of this highland 
gerbil are older than any of the four of true bdlackleri from 
comparatively low down at. Smyrna; but if the colour is 
affected by this fact, and even possibly the relative position 
of the palatine foramina and teeth, the constant presence in 
blacklert and absence in lycaon of a white tip to the tail 
seem to justify a special subspecific name for the highland 
form, 
XXVII.—WNotes on the Family Dendrocolaptidee, with Sugges- 
tions for its Division, By CHARLES CHuBB, F.Z.S., 
M.B.O.U., Zoological Department, British Museum 
(Natural History). 
WHEN the late Dr. P. L. Sclater wrote the fifteenth volume 
of the ‘ Catalogue of the Birds in the British Museum’ he 
included in the family Dendrocolaptide the ground-birds, 
bush-birds, and tree-climbing birds, dividing them into the 
following subfamilies :—Furnariine, Synallaxinine, Phily- 
dorinze, Sclerurinz, and Dendrocolaptine. ‘This was followed 
by the late Dr. Bowdler Sharpe in the ‘ Hand-list of Birds,’ 
vol. iii, 1901, with two additional subfamilies, viz., Margar- 
ornithine) and Glyphorhine, which had been established 
by Salvin and Godman (Biol. Centr.-Amer., Aves, 11. 
pp. 109, 171). Professor Ridgway, in his ‘ Birds of North 
and Middle America,” vol. v. pp. 157-295 (1911), has 
divided these into two families under the following titles :— 
Furnariidee and Dendrocolaptidee. Brabourne and Chubb, 
in their ‘ List of the Birds of South America,’ did not recog- 
nize any of the divisions mentioned above, but simply included 
them all under the family Dendrocolaptide. 
It appears to me, however, that these may be divided into 
four families, the first to include those that are essentially 
ground-birds—Furnariidee—with the following genera :— 
Geobates, Swains., 1838. 
Geositta, Swains., 1837. 
Furnarius, Vieill., 1816. 
Upucerthia, Geottr. Saint-Hilaire, 1832. 
Cinclodes, Gray, 1840. 
