FAJIIMES of the oentirostres. 
349 
ivavds. 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 the?e 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.) IV^e have already stated that the Dentirostral 
tribe consists of five families : 1. The Laniadm, or 
shrikes ; 2. The Me.rv.Mm, or thrushes ; 3. The Syl- 
viadm, or warblers j 4. The ArvpeUdm., or chatterers j 
and 5. The Mnscicupidm, 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 Deiitirostres. Characters. the Insessores. Birds, 
(■pre-eminently the re-^ 
presenUtives of the SDentirostres. Raptores. 
tribe. 3 
1. LAMADiB. 
fBill more lengthened,'! 
. .. I 
2. Merui-id.®. 
the notch smaller ; . 
feet more adapted J-Conirostres. iXSESsoRES. 
for walking. Omni- 1 
verous. J 
rSeek their food among 
3 trees ; tail feathers 
i more or less pointed 
C Insectivorous. 
^ Scans 
4. Ampelh)^. 
fFecd chiefly upon softl 
vegetables ; plumage \ 
J brilhant in the ^Xenuirostres. Grallatores 
A male; dull in the te.r '■*“'*"* 
Moult twice I 
male ; 
male, 
annually. 
j 
