Page:Natural History, Birds.djvu/199

186 Passerinæ, and the rest of the yoke-footed genera without exception,—they have absolutely nothing in common with the other Zygodactyli [or Scansores] that should entitle them to range in the same special division: their whole structure is widely at variance, and if there be one group more than another to which they manifest any particular affinity, it is that of the Diurnal Birds of Prey, which, we conceive, should range next to them, though still very distantly allied. They certainly accord with the Falcons more than with any other bird in the contour of the beak, and the nostrils are analogously pierced in a membrane termed the cere: they have a similar enlargement of the œsophagus [or gullet], which occurs in no other zygodactyle bird, but which is glandular as in the Pigeons, secreting a lacteal substance with which the young are at first nourished; the Parrots and Pigeons being almost the only birds which subsist exclusively on vegetable diet at all ages."

On the other hand, most naturalists, in their systematic arrangements, and even many of those who argue for a different position and rank, agree to retain these birds in the situation and relationship in which they were placed by Linnaeus, viz., in immediate proximity to the Toucans and Woodpeckers. And, in defence of this arrangement, we will refer to the interesting observations of Mr. Vigors, whose perceptions of the affinities of birds have perhaps never been surpassed. That ornithologist, while he places the Parrots next to the Toucans, and concurs in the general views which bring these birds into neighbouring