

14 EMBERIZTD^E. 



Systematic ornithologists long ago recognized the distinct- 

 ness of the families Ember izidce and Fringillida, but of late 

 most authors have shewn a disposition to merge the former 

 in the latter. Very recently Prof. Parker has ascertained 

 the existence in the Emberizida of an additional pair of 

 palatal bones (the " palato-maxillaries," as he calls them) 

 which are wanting in the normal Fringillidce, and this 

 discovery will probably lead to a restoration of the older 

 view ; but it would seem that certain American forms, as 

 Cardinalis and Phrygilus, hitherto unhesitatingly assigned 

 to the Fringittida, also possess these bones, and will therefore 

 have to be included among the Emberizida, though it is not at 

 all impossible that among the birds of the New World some 

 will be found which, by the structure of their palate, bridge 

 over the gap between the two families. The palatal knob, 

 so characteristic of most of the Buntings especially those 

 of the Old World is, according to the same investigator, 

 formed by a swollen ingrowth of the dentary edges of the 

 premaxillary mass. The Linnsean genus Ember iza has 

 been split into many groups by various authors. Several of 

 these obviously do 'not deserve recognition as genera, the 

 characters which distinguish them being very trifling ; but 

 the present species and the next differ so much from the 

 normal Buntings in the form of the wing, in the straight 

 hind-claw, and in their habit of running and not hopping on 

 the ground and of singing in the air, that the admission of 

 Bernhard Meyer's genus, Plectrophanes, for their reception 

 would appear to be needed. 



