1880.] ANATOMY OF PASSERINE BIRDS. 



387 



4. Contributions to the Anatomy of Passerine Birds. 



Part III. On some Points in the Structure of Philepitta, 

 and its Position amongst the Passeres. By W. A. 

 Forbes, B.A., F.L.S., Prosector to the Society. 



[Eeceived April 15, 1880.] 



The doubt which has hitherto prevailed amongst ornithologists as 

 to the true affinities of the very singular Malagash bird fo" which 

 Geoffroy founded his genus Philepitta \ makes a knowledge of its 

 anatomy, and particularly of its osteology and syrinx, a desicferatum. 

 Its original describer considered this genus most nearly related to 

 Philedon. Bonaparte, in his Conspectus", referred Philepitta with 

 some doubt to the Starlings {Sturnidce), placing it near Dilophus. 

 1 he late Mr. Gray, in his Hand-list \ made it a genus of Pittida 

 Pitta being the only other genus of that family recognized by 



Mr. Sharpe in 1870 * suggested that it ought to be regarded as an 

 aberrant genus of the Paradiseidce, forming a subfamily which he 

 proposed to call Philepittince. 



That neither this position nor those assigned to it by Geoffroy or 

 by Bonaparte can be accepted is evident from the fact that, as shown 

 by Sundevall ', Philepitta possesses a loug 10th (" first "«) primary 

 at the same tune that the tarsus is not bilaminate. The Swedish 

 naturalist last mentioned made his subfamily Paictiiice (he having 

 rechnstened Philepitta Paictes) the first in the fifth cohort " Taxa 

 spidece," of his " Oscines Scutelliplantares," the others bein* the 

 ThamnophihncB, Mi/rmornithince, HpysibcBmoniiice, and Scytalopo- 

 dincB, in which last Menura was also included— a striking illustration 

 of the unsatisfactory results that a classification founded on external 

 characters only always leads to. 



More recently, M. Alphonse Milne-Edwards has figured the two 

 known species of Philepitta, as well as the tongue and osteology of 

 P castanea, m Grandidier's magnificent work on Madagascar' 

 In this work (the plates only of the part in question having been 

 issued) he places it next to the Nectariniida, apparently on account 

 ot the eye-wattle of the male and the bifid tongue approximating it 

 to such a form of that group as Neodrepanis. Having written to M 

 Milne-Edwards to ask if he had examined the syrinx or other soft 

 parts of the bird under discussion, he was kind enou^^h to reply by 

 sending me the viscera, including the trachea &c., of a specimen (in 

 all probabihty P. castanea), and by generously granting me per- 

 mission to make any use of them I liked. He also infornis me that 

 in the text to the plates he has fully described the osteology. 



\ ^g- 2ool., Ois., pi. 3, 1839. 2 Op. oit. p. 422 



3 Op. oit. i. p. 297, gen. no. 1094. * P. Z. S. 1870, p 397 



* lentamen, p. 63. 6 ep„ p 7 sj 1070 „ 'n-n 



Proc. Zool. Soc— 1880, No. XXVI. 26 



