Recent Ornithological Publications. 217 



long live to enjoy his well-earned fame. We wish we could say 

 a good word for the illustrations of his work ; they serve to 

 show, as we have for some time suspected, that wood-cutting is 

 rapidly becoming one of the lost arts. 



Since some space was devoted in our last year's volume (Ibis, 



1868, pp. 85-96) to an abstract of Professor Huxley^s proposed 



Classification of Birds, it seems expedient to say a few words on 



another paper of his contained in the Zoological ' Proceedings ' 



(P. Z. S. 1868, pp. 294-319), wherein are contained the results 



of further researches made by him on the same subject. Of 



these results we can, however, only speak as briefly as possible. 



Our readers will recollect that in a letter which Professor Huxley 



did us the honour of addressing to this Journal (Ibis, 1868, 



pp. 357-362), he made use of three new names of Groups — 



Turnicimorphte, PteroclomoiyJKS and Heteromorphce — but without 



defining their limits or giving his reason for establishing their 



independence. Both these very necessary steps are taken in the 



paper we are now noticing; and without going into the matter 



with respect to the first two further than to say that they include 



respectively the Turnicida and PteroclidcB, we have to mention 



that the third, Heteromorpha, is erected for the special benefit of 



that very remarkable and hitherto puzzling bird Opisthocomus 



cristatus, a course which appears to us in every way justifiable. 



The principal features of the osteology of this form are most 



carefully described, and illustrated by numerous and characteristic 



woodcuts. With regard to its sternal apparatus Opisthocomus 



stands, so far as is known, quite by itself ; the carina is scarcely 



developed anteriorly ; and the furcula is anchylosed with the 



manubrium. Many more important difl'erences are observable in 



other parts of the bird^s structure ; and we cannot but heartily 



congratulate ornithologists on the light thus thrown upon its 



place in nature, and the learned author of this paper on his 



luminous exposition of the subject. The remainder of the paper 



is also in the highest degree interesting : though, professedly 



considering only the geographical distribution of the Alectoru- 



morphce, Professor Huxley in a few pages adduces and collates 



