On the Claivs and Spurs of Birds' Wings. 147 



central tail-feathers rufous, irregularly patched with black ; 

 outer tail-featliers uniformly rich rufous, thinly margined 

 on the inner sides with dusky brown, each feather banded 

 with black and tipped with white ; underside of tail-feathers 

 similarly marked, but of a brownish dusky shade. Under 

 tail-coverts rich rufous, tipped with white. 



I take the liberty of naming this new species after my 

 esteemed friend, the well-known ornithologist, Hofrath 

 Dr. A. B. Meyer, Director of the Dresden Museum. 



The type specimens of these new species belong to the 

 Hungarian National Museum. 



Budapest, Nov. 28, 1883. 



XIX. — On the Claivs and Spurs of Birds' Wings. 

 By P. L. ScLATER, M.A., Ph.D., F.R.S. 



In the ' Proceedings ' of the Boston Society of Natural 

 History for 1881 (vol. xxi. p. 301) will be found an excellent 

 paper by Mr. J, Amory Jeffries, " On the Claws and Spurs on 

 Birds' Wings," whicli^ I regret to say, has hitherto escaped 

 notice in the columns of this Journal. It is, however, 

 eminently Avorthy of careful study. Mr. Jeffries shows 

 definitely for the first time, so far as I can make out*, that 

 the spurs which are in some cases found on the wings of 

 birds are of an entirely different nature from the claws also 

 met with on the same organs, and have, in fact, nothing 

 whatever to do with them. 



The spur, as Mr. Jeffries points out, is a structure on the 

 wing which corresponds to the spur on the tarsus of the 



* Even so recent an authority as Dr. Selenka (•' Broun's Thier-Reich,' 

 Aves, p. 75j has confounded together the spur and claw of birds. His 

 account of the subject contains several serious misstatements, and is 

 obviously not based on his own examination. Owen's ' Anatomy of 

 Vertebrates ' {cf. op. cit. ii. p. 74) likewise confounds claws and spurs. It 

 must be even admitted that Nitzsch (usually a model of accuracy, and 

 the first scientific describer of the claws of birds)* did not quite under- 

 stand the differences between claws and spurs (see his ' Osteographische 

 Beitrage,' no. 5. " Ueber das Nagelglied der Fliigeltinger, besonders dea 

 Daumens : " Leipzig, 1811). 



