On certain variations in the vocal organs of the passeres : that have hitherto escaped notice / Johannes Muller ; the translation by F. Jeffrey Bell ; edited, with an appendix, by A.H. Garrod.

Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On certain variations in the vocal organs of the passeres : that have hitherto escaped notice / Johannes Muller ; the translation by F. Jeffrey Bell ; edited, with an appendix, by A.H. Garrod. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    and Magpies, and asserted that it was generally present in the Passerines with the exception of the Swifts [Cypselus), Goatsuckers, and Kingfishers, which, like many birds not placed among Passerines, but belonging to the Acci_pitres, Scansores, and Palmipedes, possess only a single median muscle on either side of the lower larynx. Tiedemann^ and Meckel ^ confirmed these results, but pursued the subject no further. Savart^ confirmed them in essential points, but did pursue the subject; he described six muscles, three anterior and three posterior pairs, in the Ravens, Shrikes, and Starlings^ and five (two anterior pairs) in the Thrushes and Larks. In Naumann's work on the Birds of Germany, Nitzsch pointed out the presence of the muscular organ of voice in every genus of European Songster which he had been able to examine. In his different ornithological Essays, for example in those on the nasal glands of birds *, and on the carotids ^, in his Anatomical Appendices to Naumann's work ^, in his posthumous notes [Article ' Passerinen ' by Burmeister, in Ersch and Gruber's Encyclopaedia], and in his Pterylographie'^, he attempts to separate those Passerines which do not possess this complex organ of voice^ but possess only one muscle, like the majority of the Scansores, from the Singing Birds or Passerines, and to unite them with the Scansores into one order of Wood-peckers (Spechtvogel) or Picariae. He sought eagerly after other osteological, splanchnological, and angeiological characters of Singing Birds; and in this way many interesting peculi- arities in and diflPerences among them were brought to light. But it can be seen at the same time that no one of these characters is absolute, and that there are important exceptions to each of them. Many birds, in which the muscular organ of voice is absent, have the manubrium of the sternum bifurcate, as Ampelis, Gi/mnocephalus, Rupicola, Pipra, Furnarius, Thamnophilus, Tj/ranmis, Elaenia, and many others. No Passerine, it is well known, with two notches on each side of the sternum, possesses the muscular organ of voice ; but the sternum of very many Passerines, in which I have not found the muscular organ of voice, has only one notch on each side, e. g. Hurylaimus, Ampelis, Gymnocephalus, Psaris, PachyrhampJms, Phibalura, Rupicola, Pipra, Tyrannus, Elaenia, Myiohius, Fluvicola, Thamnophilus, Myiothera, Tinactor, Furnarius, Cinclodes, Chamaeza, Gonopophaga, Synallaxis, Xenops, Anabates, Dendro- colaptes, and others. ^ Zoologie. II. Band. Heidelberg, 1810, p. 669. 2 Syst. d. vergl. Anat. VI. Halle, 1833, p. 488. ^ Froriep's Notizen. XVI. Band. 1826, N. 331. ^ Meckels Deutsches Archiv f. d. Physiologic, VI. 234. ° Obs. de avium arteria carotide coramuni. Halae, 1829. 4, ^ Naturgeschichte der Vogel Deutschlands. Leipz. 1822. ' System der Pterylographie. Halle, 1840. 4. t