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Show 1880.] ANATOMY OF PASSERINE BIRDS. 381 ornithologists1. That more intimate knowledge of their structure from which alone any true answer to this question could be given, has been likewise gradually accumulating for many years. Nitzsch, in his great work on Pterylography, published posthumously in 1840, showed that the species examined by him possessed a characteristically Passerine pterylosis2. Johannes Miiller, in 1846, in his classical memoir on the vocal organs of Passeres3, remarked that in Cory don sumatranus, the only species of this group examined by him, there were " no muscular fibres on the larynx." Blanchard, in 18594, showed that Euryleemus javanicus agreed in its sternal characters with other Passeres, and particularly compared it with the Swallows in this respect. Mr. Sclater5, in 1872, figured the sternum of Cymbirhynchus macrorhynchus (under the name of Euryleemus javanicus ; cf. Lord Walden, /. c. p. 370), and stated that in his opinion these birds were truly Passerine. Prof. Garrod6, in 1877, was enabled, by an examination of dry skins of Cymbirhynchus, Calyptomena, and Euryleemus ochromelas, to show that these species differed singularly from all other Passeres yet examined in that in them the tendon of the flexor longus hallucis sends a strong vinculum to the tendon of the flexor digitorum profundus, as in nearly all other non-passerine birds in which a hallux is developed. He also showed at the same time that in these species the palate was truly Passerine, and proposed to divide the order Passeres " into two sections to start with, those with the hallux not free (the Euryleemidee), and those with the hallux independently movable." The following year he was able to add to this account some facts in the anatomy of two other species, Psarisomus dalhou-sice and Serilophus rubropygius. These facts included the typical Passerine arrangement of the tendon of the tensor patagii brevis (P. Z. S. 1876, p. 508), the presence of the left carotid only, the 1 For a succinct resume of the opinions of ornithologists on this point, see Mr. Sclater's paper in the ' Ibis,' quoted below. 2 Eay Soc. ed., pp. 76, 77. These were Corydon sumatranus, Calyptomena viridis, Eurylamus javanicus and E. ochromelas, and Cymbirhynchus macrorhynchus. In the three last named Nitzsch describes nine of the remiges as situated " on the hand ;" in all the specimens of this group I have examined, I find there are ten primaries (cf. also Wallace, Ibis, 1874, p. 406, and Sundevall, Tentamen, p. 61). An examination of the pterylosis in m y spirit-specimens has also convinced me of the partial inaccuracy of Nitzsch's figure of that of Cymbirhynchus (pl. iii. fig. 15). The lumbar saddle is here represented as too angular, and the inclosed space, as well as the antero-lateral tracts bounding it, too broad. The postero-lateral tracts also are represented as consisting of but a single row of feathers. In reality, in this species there is a large ephippial space, of an elongated oval shape, the whole shape of the saddle being more like that represented by Nitzsch in Cephalopterus (I. c. fig. 10.) The tracts behind are two feathers broad. In Calyptomena, judging from skins, there is an acutely-angled rhombic saddle, whilst in Euryleemus the condition is intermediate. I may add that in E. ochromelas and Cymbirhynchus the neck-feathering of the lower surface is uninterrupted till behind the middle, and that the throat is entirely feather-clad, with no naked symphysial space. 3 Garrod's edition, p. 27. * Ann. Sci. Nat. (4) Zool. vol. xi. p. 92. • Ibis 1872, p. 177, & c 6 P. Z. S. 1877, p. 447. |