Systematic ornithologists long ago recognized the distinctness
of the families Emberizidce and Fringillidce, but of late
most authors have shewn a disposition to merge the former
in the latter. Very recently Prof. Parker has ascertained
the existence in the Emberizidce of an additional pair of
palatal bones (the “ palato-maxillaries,” as he calls them)
which are wanting in the normal Fringillidce, and this
discovery will probably lead to a restoration of the older
view ; but it would seem that certain American forms, as
Cardinalis and Phrygilus, hitherto unhesitatingly assigned
to the Fringillidce, also possess these bones, and will therefore
have to be included among the Emberizidce, though it is not at
all impossible that among the birds of the New World some
will be found which, by the structure of their palate, bridge
over the gap between the two families. The palatal knob,
so characteristic of most of the Buntings—especially those
of the Old World—is, according to the same investigator,
formed by a swollen ingrowth of the dentary edges of the
premaxillary mass. The Linnsean genus Emberiza has
been split into many groups by various authors. Several of
these obviously do not deserve recognition as genera, the
characters which distinguish them being very trifling ; but
the present species and the next differ so much from the
normal Buntings in the form of the wing, in the straight
hind-claw, and in their habit of running and not hopping on
the ground and of singing in the air, that the admission of
Bernhard Meyer’s genus, Plectrophanes, for their reception
would appear to be needed.
PASSE RES. EMBERIZIEJZ.
P l e c t r o ph a n e s la p po n ic u s (Linnaeus*).
THE LAPLAND BUNTING.
Plectrophanes Lapponica.
T h e , L apland B u n t in g , a native, as its name imports,
of the most northern parts of Europe, and even of the
Arctic Regions pretty generally, has been taken on several
occasions in this country. The first instance was announced
to the Linnean Society by Selby, early in 1826, the bird
having been found in Leadenhall Market, whither it had
been sent with some Larks from Cambridgeshire, and after
being preserved by Mr. Weighton of the City Road, passed
into Yigors’s collection, which was subsequently given to
the Museum of the Zoological Society. The second exam-
* Fringilla lapponica, Linnaeus, Syst. Nat. Ed. 12, i. p. 317 (1766).