392 C. J. Sundcvall on the IVhiys of Birds. 



the first, second, &c. feather is the longest. This adoption 

 of terms in i)lace of definitions may, indeed, be often valuable 

 and useful ; but it seems to me unnecessary, for when exacti- 

 tude is required we must still always say, for example, the 

 first feather is the longest, or the second feather is the longest, 

 &c., which is certainly more definite than to say the wing is 

 very acute [suraigue, acutissima) or merely acute [aigiie, 

 acuta) . 



Nitzseh's remarkable work ' System der Pterylographie,' 

 as is well known, threw a new light on the feather-covering 

 of birds in general; but as regards the structure of the wings, 

 we find in it scarcely any statements except as to the number 

 and structure of the remiges. The coverts are noticed 

 only in a few places, and the nnmber or constitution of their 

 series, their presence or absence, distance aj)art, &c. are, 

 remarkably enongh, not mentioned at all. 



Those who have seen in the bird's wing merely a flying- 

 machine and studied it in this aspect have had the least in- 

 fluence of all upon our knowledge. It must be remarked 

 that the wing always occurs in birds, but that it is not 

 always an organ of flight. 



By a comparison, made about Christmas 1830, of the 

 wings in a freshly killed Sirix bubo witli those of Emberiza 

 citrinella, I first obtained a notion of the considerable dif- 

 ferences which exist between those organs in dift'erent genera. 

 The changed position of many series of feathers and the 

 great difference in the number and length of the coverts 

 especially attracted my attention^. A continued investi- 

 gation soon showed that these differences were of the 

 greatest importance as external characters for the primary 

 divisions of the class, and as such they were set forth in ray 

 " Ornithologiska System,'^ prepared in the year 1834, and 

 printed in the ' Vetenskaps-Akademiens Handlingar' for 



• It must be stated that Herr W. v. Wright had about the same time 

 noticed these peculiarities in the wings of birds, of which his remark- 

 ably correct figures in the ilhistrated work ' Skandinaviens Foglsy' bear 

 witness. Rut we did not know of each other's di.scoveries until some 

 years afterwards. 



