482 NATURAL HISTORY OF BIRDS. 



being fused into continuous lamina, or ' boots.' Professor Newton has made a very 

 successful assault upon this arrangement, the most forcible argument being the rather 

 generalized state of their coloration, the young ones being very different from the 

 adults, and spotted. But he is probably going too far when he thinks that " so far 

 from the Turdidae being at the head of the Oscines, they are among its lower mem- 

 bers." This view is entirely opposed to that of Professor Parker, whom Newton quotes 

 in defence of his assigning the first position to the crows. But if Parker's opinion 

 lias any weight as to one family, it probably is of some importance in regard to 

 another ; and as to the " warblers," as typified by the European redstart, which 

 most certainly belongs to the Turdida?, the latter gentleman says that " in the fulness 

 of their organization as to all that lifts a bird on high above a reptile, or above a rep- 

 tilian bird, these types are, as to family, what a blood-horse is as to breed ; they are 

 of the highest and the purest blood. That these birds (the very aristocracy of the 

 ' Oscines,' or songsters) are small does not much affect the question ; for if we wish 

 to look for a low bird of mean reptilian blood, we search for it amongst the ponderous 

 giants." 



In order to find out the most specialized form of the Passeres, we must look for 

 the bird which is most specialized in all directions, not only as to the coloration of its 

 plumage, or the fusion of its tarsal covering. The ideally highest form of this super- 

 family would have booted tarsi, nine primaries, long mandibular symphysis, powerful 

 bill for grain-crushing, a digestive system adapted to grain-feeding, and coloration of 

 young and adults unspotted and similar. That this is the regular course and ultimate 

 end of the evolution among the higher birds is evident from the fact that we can trace 

 it in nearly all the groups, and in the individual development of the birds possessing 

 these characters. Thus the young of birds with booted tarsus have the tarsal cover- 

 ing yet divided into scutella? ; in nine primaried birds the tenth primary can be seen 

 in the unfledged young, and in those with the tenth (usually called the first) primary 

 aborted, it is longer in the young bird than in the adult ; grain-feeding species are 

 insectivorous and feeble-billed when young, and in young birds the symphysis of the 

 mandibular rami is shorter than in the adults; and, finally, a uniformly colored 

 plumage usually develops from a spotted one, and, as far as we know, never a spotted 

 plumage out of a uniform one. 



A passeroid bird combining all these characters is not known, but the above com- 

 bination is that standard by which the different claimants have to be compared. The 

 form which comes nearest to the standard will have to take the ' highest ' place. 



It is then apparent that the Turdidje, whether including both thrushes and Old 

 World warblers, or only the former, do not fill the bill, in spite of the booted tarsi. 

 The little kinglets (Regulus) which combine this character with an unspotted young 

 plumage make a good showing, and should stand highest in their family ; but their 

 beak and palate are not particularly specialized, and the wing has ten primaries. 



The Corvida?, or crows, have recently come to the front, advocated by Professor 

 Newton, who thinks that " he would be a bold man who would venture to gainsay " 

 Parker's opinion, that " in all respects, physiological, morphological, and ornithologi- 

 cal, the crow may be placed at the head, not only of its own great series (birds of the 

 crow form), but also as the unchallenged chief of the whole of the ' Carinatae."' Not 

 only has Parker himself partly neutralized, not to say gainsaid, this passage by the 

 one quoted above, but I think that the risk in challenging the crow's claims can- 

 not be so very great. This type of the genus Corvus does certainly not stand the 



