NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS, 459 
Classifications of Birds, all of which are worthy of the highest 
consideration, and are doubtless more or less familiar to our 
readers, but none of which seem to have met with anything like 
general acceptance, either from their want of sufficient simplicity 
and uniformity, or in consequence of their being based too ex- 
clusively upon hidden characters. To the latter category, it may 
be said, belong the classification proposed by Professor Huxley in 
1867, which is based on the modifications of certain of the cranial 
bones, and the classification of Professor Garrod, published in 
1874, based mainly on the arrangement of the muscles of the 
thigh. 
Apart from the question of “basis,” no two authorities seem 
agreed upon the question “where to begin.” Mr. Pascoe, in his 
recently published ‘ Zoological Classification, commences his 
classification of birds with the Woodpeckers, Picide, or more 
accurately speaking with the order Pict. Mr. Sclater prefers to 
begin with the order Passeres, and heads his ‘ List of Birds in the 
Gardens of the Zoological Society’ with the Thrushes. Professor 
Newton, adopting the time-honoured system of Linnzus, deals first 
with the order Accipitres, and in his edition of ‘ Yarrell’s British 
Birds’ commences, as Yarrell did, with the Vultures. 
Mr. Wharton, in the ‘List’ before us, while agreeing with 
Mr. Sclater in giving priority to the order Passeres, or, as he 
would term it, Oscines, prefers the Nightingale to the Thrush, 
and accordingly commences with the former species. When it is 
stated that he begins with the Nightingale and ends with the 
Hooded Merganser, some idea may be formed of the changes 
which he advocates in the system hitherto generally adopted by 
British ornithologists. But in this matter, we are aware, Mr. 
Wharton will disclaim responsibility, since his genera are arranged, 
as his title-page informs us, “according to Sundevall’s method.” 
Any criticism, therefore, as regards the arrangement would have to 
be directed against the late Swedish Professor, and not against 
the author of the present ‘ List.’ 
Under these circumstances our remarks will be confined to 
Mr. Wharton’s revision of the nomenclature, although we may note 
en passant a few of the more noticeable changes of position in the 
system to which some species have been subjected. The Dartford 
Warbler is removed from its proximity to the Whitethroat group 
of Warblers, to which we consider it is very closely allied, and 
