416 C. J. Sundevall on the Wings of Birds. 



between the roots of the remiges and greater covert-feathers, 

 or within the muscular layer, close upon its hinder limit. 

 (The latter in the Oscines, e. g. Parus.) They are most 

 visible in the Oscines, in consequence of the absence of 

 the next series, and are quite short, soft, and. usually distin- 

 guished by a peculiar colour-marking, e. g. white at the apex 

 in many, so that they form a transverse band upon the wing. 

 (A transverse band upon the wing is almost still more fre- 

 quently produced by the apices of the greater covert-feathers, 

 which, in the Song-birds, are often white, yellow, or of paler 

 colour) . 



These feathers seem to have been but little observed. Ac- 

 cording to the definition in Illiger^s ' Terminologie,^ they 

 constitute his ''ptila," which are said to lie immediately within 

 the pteromata ; but the want of any special name for all the 

 following smaller feathers seems to show that Illiger included 

 them also under the name of ptila. In the Song-birds, in 

 which they alone are reversed, they may receive this name 

 (perversce) ; but it seems to me to be safest to employ the 

 denomination above given, which at any rate is correct. If 

 we had not accustomed ourselves to an entirely different signi- 

 fication of the names primarice and secundaria, these terms 

 would undoubtedly have been best of all adapted for these 

 two series, the first and second coverts. 



3. The Tectrices minores cubiti vel manus (smaller wing- 

 coverts, figs. 2, 3 b) form several (2-5) series inserted in 

 the skin upon the bones and muscles of the arm or hand 

 itself. In form they do not differ at all, or but slightly, from 

 the feathers of the body, and in position they agree with the 

 next preceding series, inasmuch as their margins cover each 

 other in a contrary Avay to those of the remiges. But they 

 lie similarly reversed also in those birds in which those of 

 the second series are not reversed {Coracias, Cucidus, &c.). 



In the Song-birds these feathers should properly form 

 three series on the cubitus, but they show the remarkable 

 peculiarity that they are never fully developed. Only in the 

 young in their first plumage, and in the winter plumage, a 

 few of them, but never all, occur in the form of down, or of 



