56 MANUAL 



FAMILY XI TANAGRIDAE THE TANAGERS 



Derivation not certain. The latest German authorities say " from the 



Portuguese tangara" ; the tangarine is a species of orange, so may refer 



to the color ; the name of a city in Greece. 



This is another group for whose family name I can find no 

 satisfactory derivation, and whose precise position would seem 

 somewhat uncertain. It resembles both the Warblers and the 

 Finches, and would seem to stand, naturally, between them 

 — but then where should we put the intervening groups ? 

 Such families as this show the advanced student how unsatis- 

 factory our present classification really is. 



The characters of the family are very marked : The form 

 of the bill (like that of a finch or sparrow) with the peculiar 

 tooth in the center of the edge of the upper mandible ; nostrils 

 small, rounded, and basal ; tarsus scutellate ; and wings with 

 9 primaries. Being a tropical family the North. American 

 species are few. 



Genus Pyranga, The Tanagers (2 species). [Both Wilson and Audubon 

 give the genus name Tanagra, corresponding to the family designation]. 



Some writers plaee the Mexican straggler Euphonia in this family ; but 

 others connect the Cosrebidce with the Tanagers by means of it. We see 

 no reason for giving it any further special mention, it being an extra-lim- ' 

 ital form. 



FAMILY XII HIRUNDINIDAE THE 

 SWALLOWS 



Latin hirundo, a swallow. 

 The exact position of the Swallow family, like that of many 

 others, is not, at present, satisfactorily settled. Some place it 

 before and some after the Vireos and Shrikes. It is one of 

 those groups which, like a good many others, shows us how 

 next to impossible it is to arrange the divisions of the Bieds 

 in anything like a continuous line of ascending and descend- 

 ing likenesses, and so give color to the tree-theory or rather 

 tree-representation which is so often used to express the vari- 

 ous relations and inter-relations of all groups of both Animal 

 and Vegetable Kingdoms. For the present, we must be con- 



