Page:The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma (Birds Vol 1).djvu/154

Fig. 24.—Sitta himalayensis.

Family SITTIDÆ.

The family of Sittidæ, or Nuthatches, is one which it is not easy to place in any system of arrangement of the Order Passeres. Oates placed them between the Bulbuls {Pycnonotidæ) and the Drongos (Dicruridæ), with neither of which can they have any possible connection. Hartert places them between the Certhiidæ and Paridæ, an excellent position, but making these three families form a group entirely by themselves having no close connexion with those which come before or after. In the present work the preceding family, the Paradoxornithidæ, is an obvious link between the Paridæ and the Timaliidæ, and a position between these families seems, perhaps, the best for the Sittidæ. In many ways they are closely allied to the Tits, especially anatomically, and though they have not such close affinities with the Timaliidæ, they may well be an offshoot from the Paridæ, the other end of