OSCINES 495 



certainly not laid down, and it would be hard to give a good 

 reason either for admitting or refusing to admit into it genera 

 like Lioihrix or Chamaea, while the puzzle is still greater in 

 regard to some forms from Australia and New Zealand. 



The two latest writers on the subject, Dr. Gadow and Pro- 

 fessor Newton, abstain from offering any scheme of Classification of 

 the Oscines, the latter limiting himself to the declaration, already 

 expressed by the late W. K. Parker, that the Corvidae should 

 stand as the highest group. As regards their predecessors it will be 

 enough here to enumerate the " Families " in the order in which 

 they were arranged by Dr. Stejneger 1 in 1885, and Dr. Sharpe 2 

 in 1891; the scheme of the last author, however, being reversed 

 to harmonize with the plan of the present volume, in which the 

 lower groups are assigned priority. The order of Dr. Stejneger, 

 which is based on both anatomy and morphology, is that subse- 

 quently followed, but his Families are not invariably adhered to. 



1 Stejneger, Standard Natural History, iv. 1885. 

 Sharpe, A Review of Recent Attempts to Classify Birds, 1891 (2nd Ornitli. Congress). 



