﻿FAMILIES OF THE DENTIROSTRES. 349 



wards. This plan is subject to some inconveniences ; 

 but, upon the whole, it will give the general reader a 

 popular insight into their chief peculiarities, and in 

 some measure prepare him for the details, which will 

 follow in their proper place. All these tables, therefore, 

 must be looked on not as proofs, but as presumptive 

 evidences in favour of those propositions stated in a 

 former volume ; which propositions can only be made 

 good by the chain of affinity corresponding to that of 

 analogy. Having now explicitly stated the plan upon 

 which we shall uniformly act, we may proceed. 



(291.) We have already stated that the Dentirostral 

 tribe consists of five families: I. The Laniadce, or 

 shrikes ; 2. The Merutidce, or thrushes ; 3. The Syl- 

 madcs, or warblers ; 4. The Ampelidce, or chatterers ; 

 and 5. The Muscicapidce, or flycatchers. The first is 

 the typical, the second the subtypical, and the three last 

 form the aberrant group. The names of these families 

 will suggest familiar examples, known to almost every 

 reader : we, therefore, need not, at present, enter more 

 particularly into their characters than what is stated in 

 the following tables, the first of which is for the pur- 

 pose of comparing these families with the tribes of the 

 Insessores, and also with the primary orders of birds. 



Families of the Typical and analogical Tribes of Orders of 



the Dentirostres. Characters. the Insessores. Birds. 



C Pre-eminently the re-} 



1. Laniad^. < presentatives of the > Dentirostres. Raptores. , 



C tribe. J 



f Bill more lengthened,! 

 j the notch smaller ; ) 



2. MERULiaas. -( feet more adapted J-Conirostres. insessores. 



j for walking. Omni- I 

 L vorous. j 



rSeek their food among} 



(. Insectivorous. ) 



f Feed chiefly upon soft") 

 j vegetables ; plumage j 



4. A**™*' \ tho'fo! Grallatores 



[ male. Moult twice J 

 W \_ annually. J 



