Classifications of Birds, all of which are worthy of the highest consideration, and are doubtless more or less familiar to our readers, but none of which seem to have met with anything like general acceptance, either from their want of sufficient simplicity and uniformity, or in consequence of their being based too exclusively upon hidden characters. To the latter category, it may be said, belong the classification proposed by Professor Huxley in 1867, which is based on the modifications of certain of the cranial bones, and the classification of Professor Garrod, published in 1874, based mainly on the arrangement of the muscles of the thigh.
Apart from the question of "basis," no two authorities seem agreed upon the question "where to begin." Mr. Pascoe, in his recently published 'Zoological Classification,' commences his classification of birds with the Woodpeckers, Picidæ, or more accurately speaking with the order Pici. Mr. Sclater prefers to begin with the order Passeres, and heads his 'List of Birds in the Gardens of the Zoological Society' with the Thrushes. Professor Newton, adopting the time-honoured system of Linnaeus, deals first with the order Accipitres, and in his edition of 'Yarrell's British Birds' commences, as Yarrell did, with the Vultures.
Mr. Wharton, in the 'List' before us, while agreeing with Mr. Sclater in giving priority to the order Passeres, or, as he would term it, Oscines, prefers the Nightingale to the Thrush, and accordingly commences with the former species. When it is stated that he begins with the Nightingale and ends with the Hooded Merganser, some idea may be formed of the changes which he advocates in the system hitherto generally adopted by British ornithologists. But in this matter, we are aware, Mr. Wharton will disclaim responsibility, since his genera are arranged, as his title-page informs us, "according to Sundevall's method."
Any criticism, therefore, as regards the arrangement would have to be directed against the late Swedish Professor, and not against the author of the present 'List.'
Under these circumstances our remarks will be confined to Mr. Wharton's revision of the nomenclature, although we may note en passant a few of the more noticeable changes of position in the system to which some species have been subjected. The Dartford Warbler is removed from its proximity to the Whitethroat group of Warblers, to which we consider it is very closely allied, and
