State of the Systema Avium. 349 
Of these the Eurylemide must be deemed, without doubt, 
the most aberrant, on account of the non-freedom of the 
flexor hallucis, above alluded to, which is unique in the order 
of Passeres. 
The third suborder of Passeres, the Tracheophone, distin- 
guished by the peculiar structure of the syrinx, first described 
by Johann Miller, is entirely confined to the New World. 
According to my views, the 500 species which it compre- 
hends should be divided into three families, the last of which 
is peculiar among all the Passeres in having a double notch 
at the posterior margin of the sternum. They are :— 
1. Dendrocolaptide. 
2, Formicarude. 
Sterni postici fissuris duabus 38. Pteroptochide. 
Sterni postici fissura unica 
The fourth and last section of the Passeres, which I have 
proposed to call Pseudoscines, contains only the anomalous 
Australian forms Aérichia and Menura, which are each fully 
worthy of family rank. When some of the other obscure 
Australian forms (such as Orthonyx) have been further ex- 
amined, it is very possible that additions will have to be 
made to this series. 
2. CypsELi sive MACROCHIRES. 
It is now universally admitted that the Cypseli, although 
not Passerine, come near to that great Order in many par- 
ticulars. Nitzsch, in 1829*, first constituted the group, to 
contain the Cypselide and Trochilide, and called them “ Macro- 
chires,”’ from the peculiar elongation of the bones of the manus. 
Sundevall, in 1836, adopted the term, and used the same limits. 
In his ‘ Pterylographie,’ Nitzsch reduced the rank of the Ma- 
crochires to a family of his Picarie—a group to which, how- 
ever, he expressly states that he can assign no single peculiar 
pterylographic character. If we allow due value to palatal 
structure, we must keep the Macrochires and Pici apart from 
the rest of the Picarize of Nitzsch, as Prof. Huxley has shown tf, 
* ¢Obs. de Avium arteria carotide communi.’ Hale, 1829. 
+ P.Z.S, 1867, p. 468. 
