AVES — PASSERINE. 
75 
PASSERINJE. 
C. SuNDEVALL drew the attention of the meeting at Bruns- 
wick, to the fact, that he had already, in his Ornithological 
System, published in the Transactions of the Swedish 
Academy for the year 1835, given a clearly defined character 
for the order of Singing Birds as comprised by Nitzsch. 
(Amtl. Bericht fiber die 19te Vers, deutscher Naturf. 
Braunschw. 1842, p. 78.) 
In all Singing Birds, the tectrices alarum are so short, that the larger 
of them do not reach the middle of the wing-feathers of the second order, 
and end in the middle of the breadth of the wings. In all birds which 
have no muscular apparatus for singing, these tectrices are much longer 
and more nmnerous, so that the smaller ones reach about as far as the 
larger ones in the Singing Birds, and the larger stretch out far over the 
middle of the wing-feathers of the second order, constituting quite a 
different form of the wing and of the whole bird. The following birds 
only appear deviating or doubtful : — 1. Menura has the Avings of a Sing- 
ing Bird, but a different formation of foot : 2. Upufa has the wings of 
a Singing Bird, but no muscular apparatus for singing : 3. The Speckled 
Woodpeckers approximate to the Singing Birds in wing-formation. 
Corvine. — Hodgson distinguisbes a new genus of Cryp- 
sirhina and Bendrocitta, Conostoma, with a more compressed 
bill, and founds it upon a species, C. mnodius, also held as 
new, from the neighbourhood of the snowy region of Nepal. 
At the same time, Hodgson remarks, that 850 species of birds 
are known to him from Nepal. (Ann. x. p. 77.) 
Lafresnaye has given the name of Pica San-Blasiana, in 
the Mag. de Zool. Ois. pi. 27, to the species defined by Neboux 
as the Geai de San-Blas, and has added a drawing of it. 
The reporter remarks, that his Corvus infwinatus, and Hedenborg’s 
C. umbrlnus (see Annual Report, 1839-40), are identical, according to 
an immediate comparison which Natterer had an opportunity of making. 
Sundevall’s description, “ capite colloque grisescentibus,” must, therefore, 
be corrected, as it leads to misconception. 
Ampelid^. — Lesson has described a Pipra fastuosa, in 
the Rev. Zool. p. 174 : habitat, Realejo in Central America. 
119 
