Sharpe divided the Passeres respectively into Oscines, Oligomyodae, Tracheophonae and Pseudoscines (= Suboscines); Oligomyodae, Tracheophonae and Acromyodae; Oscines, Oligomyodae, Tracheophonae and Atrichiidae.
Sharpe increases their number to about 15,000 in the New Hand-List of Birds, published by the British Museum.
A Monograph of the Odontophorinae or Partridges of America (1850); The Birds of Asia, in seven volumes, the last completed by Mr Sharpe (1850-1883); The Birds of Great Britain, in five volumes (1863-1873); and The Birds of New Guinea, begun in 1875, and, after the author's death in 1881, undertaken by Mr Sharpe, make up the wonderful tale consisting of more than forty folio volumes, and containing more than three thousand coloured plates.
This was William Sharpe Macleay, a man of education and real genius, who in 1819 and 1821 brought out a work under the title of Horae Entomoiogicae, which was soon after hailed by Vigors as containing a new revelation, and applied by him to ornithology in some vigoes.
Sharpe appeared in 1875-1884, but was executed on a plan so wholly different that it must be regarded as a distinct work.
