330 THE LYRE BIRD. 
and the Whip-poor-will of the Caprimulgide, both of which 
are downy at birth ; and the Menurid@ may present a similar 
exception in the group of the Passeres, where the young are 
nearly if not entirely nude. 
Gray placed Menura among the Wrens. Jerdon assigned 
it a position intermediate between the Walking Birds, —in- 
cluding the common fowl and the Pigeons and Doves, — and 
the higher Land Birds. 
Most ornithologists of the present day unite in consider- 
ing it as a member of the Passeres, that group which in- 
cludes our Thrushes, Wrens, Pewees, Humming Birds, 
Sparrows, Crows and all the multitude of their kind. 
Professor Huxley has examined a portion of its anatomy 
with care, and while referring Menura to a group equivalent 
to the Passeres, sees so many distinctions between this and 
all other passerine genera, that he places it in a section of 
this group alone, no other birds in the world answering to 
the Lyre Birds. 
Nitzsch, who with equal care, examined Menura in refer- 
ence to plumage, reaches the same conclusion, that it is un- 
doubtedly a passerine genus, but that in certain respects it 
differs from every other, while manifesting a relationship to 
the Wrens, the Thrushes, the Dippers and several other 
allied families. 
From all these considerations the probabilities of the 
case seem to be, that the Lyre Birds are neither Wrens nor 
shes, nor members of any other family to which they 
appear to be most nearly allied; but that they may be the 
living representatives of a group which preceded one, or 
either, or all of these various families; and, that under a 
passerine form, they repeat some of the peculidrities of the 
Megapodes and of their near connections, in the line of ascent, 
the Cracide and Penelopide; at the same time reasserting, 
in a general way, their resemblance to the Walking Birds, 
while exhibiting a fundamentally passerine nature. In the 
same manner does each of the vertebrate classes repeat, 
