508 MR. A. H. GARROD ON THE ANATOMY [June 6, 



existence of the mesomyodian voice-organ, there can be scarcely 

 any doubt that had he lived subsequently to Midler he would never 

 bave separated its possessors off from their oscine allies, considering 

 that be bad fundamental palatal and pterylographic characters to 

 fall back upon. 



The investigations of Macgillivray * and others have made it 

 evident that colic caeca (of small size) are present in all true 

 Passerine birds ; and this fact, when correlated with the universal 

 presence of a nude coccygeal oil-gland, has led me f to place them 

 in near relationship with those other Cuvierian Passeres (the Cu- 

 culidae excepted) in which the oil-gland is nude and cseca coli are 

 always present — away from the remainder of his group, in which no 

 caeca are developed and the oil-gland is tufted. The Passeriformes 

 and Piciformes thus defined, all wanting the ambiens muscle across 

 the knee, are included in my major division of the Anomalogonatee. 



Taking the summation of the characters above referred to, in 

 association with others too well known to require special mention, 

 the Passeres may be defined as those Anomalogonatous birds with 

 the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th toes of the foot directed forwards, and the 

 hallux backwards, in which the flexor longus hallucis muscle is 

 independent of the flexor perforans digitorum, the colic caeca are 

 short, the oil-gland nude, at the same time that it is of a character- 

 istic shape, and the palate aegithognathous i. 



Among the Anomalogonatee there are three toes directed forwards 

 in the Bucerotidae, Akedinidae, Coliidae, Upupidae, Coraciinoe, 

 Momotinae, Caprimulgidae, and Meropidae ; the flexor longus hal- 

 lucis is free from the ^.ror perforans digitorum in the Upupidae ; 

 colic caeca are present in the Caprimulgidae, Coraciinae, Momo- 

 tinae, Galbulidae, Trogonidae, Meropidae, and almost certainly so in 

 the Bucconidae, in which families also the oil-gland is nude ; the 

 palate is aegithognathous in Thinocorus, Turnix, and the Cypselinae, 

 nearly so in the Caprimulgidae and Trochilinae. 



My investigations into the myology of birds have supplied me with 

 another character of great practical value, which, though in one or 

 two cases slightly disguised, is never found in any but veritable 

 Passeres. It is a peculiarity in the method of insertion of the 

 tendon of the tensor patagii brevis of the wing. 



In the triangular patagium of the wing of the bird the tendons of 

 two muscles are to be found. One is that of the tensor patagii 

 longus, which forms the supporting cord of the free margin of the 

 membrane itself. The second is that of the tensor patagii brevis, 

 which courses parallel with the humerus, not distant from that bone, 

 to the muscles and fasciae of the forearm. In the Ramphastinae, 

 Capitoninae, and Picinae, where this muscle is less complicated than 

 in any other birds, it arises, as is generally the case, from the apex 

 of the upper of the two processes at the scapular extremity of the 

 furcula, as well as by a small special slip from the superficial fibres 

 of the pectoralis major muscle, which differentiates itself off from 



* Audubon's Ornithological Biography, 1838. t P. Z. S. 1874, p. 119. 

 X Prof. HuxIpt, " Classification of Pircls," P. Z. S. 18(V7, p. 456. 



