ANALOGIES OF THE DBNTIROSTRBS 
35S 
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 
Sc^nsores. Analogies, Dentirostres. 
PsiTTAciDiB. Bill very short; distinctly toothed. Lanudas. 
P.CU..AS. ^ “‘’■""I 
CERTHiADiB. Bill vory slender, Sylviad/E. 
CcccCDia. AMPELmas. 
Rampuastid.®. Bill enormous. Muscicapid®. 
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 tlirushes 
(Merulidce) have the ends of their tail feathers terminated 
by minute and delicate points ; until, by instituting the 
comparisons w'e 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 arc on each 
side the shaft. On looking to the Certhmda, or creepers, 
and the SyMuilre, 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, hut is placed in the same family with the 
