SUB-ORDER 
OSCINES. 
Singing Birds. 
Ch. —Toes, three anterior, one behind ; all at the same level, and none versatile, the outer anterior never entirely free to 
the base. Tail feathers, twelve. Primaries, either nine only, or else the first is spurious or much shorter than the second, making 
the tenth. Tail feathers usually twelve. Tarsi feathered to the knee ; the plates on the anterior face either fused into one, or with 
distinct divisions ; the posterior portion of the sides covered by one continuous plate on either side, meeting in a sharp edge behind, 
or with only a few divisions inferiorly. Occasionally the hinder side has transverse plates, corresponding in number to the 
anterior, but there are then usually none on the sides. Larynx provided with a peculiar muscular apparatus for singing, 
composed of five pairs of muscles. 
The preceding diagnosis, mainly derived from Dr. Cabanis, expresses the chief characteristics 
of such land birds as are provided with a peculiar apparatus for producing song. Birds of other 
orders may have more or less agreeable notes, but it is among the Oscines that we find the 
delightful and varied melody we are accustomed to consider as the “singing” of birds. It is, 
indeed, seldom, as Cabanis justly remarks, that so great a change has been produced in the sys¬ 
tematic arrangement of a class by the discovery of a single fact, as has been the case in orni¬ 
thology since the announcement that some birds have a peculiar muscular vocal apparatus, 
denied to others. It is to Cabanis himself, however, that is chiefly due the merit of having been 
among the first to discover appreciable external characters corresponding to these anatomical 
peculiarities, and of defining the boundaries of the families as rearranged. 
The most natural arrangement of the Oscines, or singing birds, is a matter of much uncer¬ 
tainty, and can only be settled by the careful examination, external and internal, of a great 
number of types. As the birds of North America lack representatives of many sub-families, 
and even of families, I have done little more than to follow Dr. Cabanis in his Ornithologische 
Notizen, 1 and Museum Heineanum, making here and there a slight transposition where it seemed 
necessary. The characters of some of the families, and of nearly all the sub-families, I have 
been obliged to work out for myself, owing to the very meagre indications given by the above 
mentioned author. 
According to Cabanis, the fusion of all the scutellae of the tarsus into one continuous envelope 
without indications of division, (called “boot” by the German ornithologists,) is to be con¬ 
sidered as indicating the highest type of ornithological structure, and the position of the different 
families and genera in the scale, to be mainly regulated by their approach to this character. 
With this, however, are to be combined the'hints afforded by the greater or less development of 
the first primary, the elevation in rank being also, to a considerable degree, proportional to the 
tendency to a reduction of this quill in size, and to its gradual suppression entirely. 
The families of North American Oscines embrace a large proportion of those that have been 
established ; but some have no representatives whatever, such as the typical 3Iuscicapidae, the 
Nectarinidae, the Melliphagidae, the Ploceidae, the Sturnidae, and the Paradiseidae. Many 
sub-families are wanting, too, of families which have other representatives. 
1 Wiegmann’s Archiv fur Naturgeschichte 1847, i, 186, 308. 
