191 
Species of the Family Pteroptochidm. 
“ Pteroptochinse ” and “ Menurinse,” the latter designed for 
the peculiar Australian type Menura. But looking to the 
very singular osteological characters which Prof. Huxley has 
pointed out in Menura *, and to the fact that instead of pos¬ 
sessing the peculiar laryngeal conformation of the Tracheo- 
phonsef it is provided with five pair of singing-muscles, 
there seems to be no doubt the Menura represents a distinct 
family, “ Menuridae,” quite different from all other Passeres, 
and to be referred to the division Oscines. The Pteroptochidse 
must remain, therefore, as an independent family of them¬ 
selves, to be placed, according to my views, at the end of the 
Tracheophonine section of the Passeres, and at once distin¬ 
guishable from all other Passeres by the posterior margin of 
the sternum being doubly emarginated, as in the Pici and 
many Coccyges J. 
Of the Pteroptochidse, as thus limited, I distinguish eight 
generic forms, which may be shortly diagnosed as follows, it 
being understood that nearly every one of them possesses other 
well-marked characters besides, the chief of which are com¬ 
mented upon under the separate generic heads. 
a. mesorhinio compresso, rotundato, lineariformi. 
a'. rostro tenui, subulato. 
a". cauda Tbrevi: lororum plumis brevibus .. 1. Scytalopus. 
b". cauda donga: lororum plumis exstantibus 2. Merulaxis. 
b'. rostro robusto. 
c". tarsorum scutis obsoletis: rostri culmine 
recto. 3. Liosceles. 
d". tarsorum scutis divisis : rostri culmine 
incurvo. 
* P. Z. S. 1867, p. 472. 
t See Eyton’s account of the trachea of Menura, Ann. N. H. vii. p. 49 
(1841). 
X The only other known Passerine form in which two emarginations 
are present on each side of the posterior margin of the sternum is the 
Australian genus Atrichia. Whether this form certainly belongs to the 
Pteroptochidse, cannot be positively ascertained until the structure of its 
larynx is known; but I have little doubt that such is the. case. There is 
a sternum of Atrichia rufescens in the Cambridge Museum. 
p 2 
