j6o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



SOME OF THE "OUTLIERS" AMONG BIRDS. 



By R. W. SHUFELDT, M. D. 



AS in all other departments of biology, the classification of 

 -C\- birds was not placed uj^on a rational basis until midsummer 

 of the year 1858. It was at that time that Darwin and Wallace 

 demonstrated the principles of the law of organic evolution, and 

 gave to the world of science their views upon it and the results 

 of their labors. Prior to their day, when a new form of bird 

 came to the hands of the ornithologist, he considered his duty 

 done, in so far as classification was concerned, after he had gener- 

 ically and specifically christened it, placed it in the family and 

 order where it apparently belonged, and, finally, published its 

 description. Species were thought to be immutable, and conse- 

 quently the questions of morphology, affinity, and geographical 

 distribution meant little or nothing. If the bird was a duck, 

 with the ducks it went ; if a sparrow, then with the sparrows, 

 and so on. Ever and anon, however, a bird form would come to 

 hand that could not be fit with exactness into any of the set and 

 prescribed groups. When this was the case, one author would, 

 for given reasons of his own, place it in this genus, family, and 

 order ; while another, for reasons apparently quite as good, would 

 array it elsewhere. Thus these perplexing species were, by one 

 ornithologist or another, tossed about from group to group, 

 and ,there was no unanimity of opinion as to where they really 

 did belong. This is not at all surprising when we come to con- 

 sider the views of creation and of Nature that prevailed in the 

 early part of the present century. It was thought by many that 

 birds were created for the admiration of man, and when they 

 sang they sang for man's amusement, and in glorification of their 

 creator. Some very curious notions were entertained in regard 

 to the meager examples of fossil birds known in those days, and 

 the causes for the extinction of existing species were often con- 

 sidered to be " beyond the scope of human reason." 



All this and many other crude ideas upon the subject were 

 completely revolutionized when the laws of evolution came to be 

 known. With it came the most remarkable revelation, and the 

 entire science of ornithology passed, as it were, through a trans- 

 formation scene, and came at once to be regarded from an entirely 

 different point of view. "Classification," as Newton has said, 

 " assumed a wholly different aspect. It had up to that time been 

 little more than a shuffling of cards, the ingenious arrangement 

 of counters in a pretty pattern. Henceforward it was to be the 

 serious study of the workings of Nature in producing the beings 

 we see around us from beings more or less unlike them, that had 



