﻿ANALOGIES OF THE DEN TIROSTRES. 



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farther removed, we may expect their analogies to be 

 less striking : some very curious coincidences, however, 

 will result from the comparison. 



Families of Families of 



Scansores. Analogies. Dentirostres. 



Psittacid^. Bill very short ; distinctly toothed. Laniad^:. 



p — ^^ morecomc; tail e * 8 ]*™- 



Certhiadje. Bill very slender. Sylviad^:. 



CUCULID*. [ Bi s 1 | 1 ^ t d an 1 c e e g s. Sh ° rt J UP ° n S ° ft ] AMPELIDiB. 



RAMPHASTiDffi. Bill enormous. Muscicapid^e 



When we see the short and strongly-toothed bill of the 

 shrike, reproduced, as it were, upon a parrot, we cease 

 to wonder that the old systematists should confound 

 affinity with analogy, and because the bills of the two 

 birds so much resemble each other, should have placed 

 the two groups close together, although the one is rapa- 

 cious and the other frugivorous. We were long per- 

 plexed in discovering why nearly all the true thrushes 

 (Merulidce) have the ends of their tail feathers terminated 

 by minute and delicate points ; until, by instituting the 

 comparisons we are now making, the explanation came 

 to light. A tail, ending in very sharp points, is well 

 known to be the pre-eminent character of the true 

 woodpeckers; a family so very distant from the thrushes, 

 that, but for this exquisitely beautiful bond of relation- 

 ship, it would have been impossible to trace their 

 analogy. There is, however, this difference, that the 

 pointed feathers of the woodpecker are actually necessary 

 to its economy, while those of the thrush are merely slen- 

 der filaments projecting beyond the webs that are on each 

 side the shaft. On looking to the Certhiada, or creepers, 

 and the Sylviadce, or warblers, innumerable points of 

 strong analogy present themselves : these, as usual, have 

 been mistaken for affinities ; so that, to this day, there is 

 scarcely an ornithologist who has not mistaken one for 

 the other. The common gold crest (Sylvia regulus) 

 climbs among trees, and is not only called a wren by 

 the vulgar, but is placed in the same family with the 



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