INTRODUCTION 4g 



be regretted that the very concise terms in whicli his decisions were given 

 to the world make it impossible to determine with any degree of certainty 

 the extent of the changes in this respect which he would have introduced. 

 Had Merrem published his scheme on an enlarged scale, it seems likely 

 that he would have obtained for it far more attention, and possibly some 

 portion of acceptance. He had deservedly attained no little reputation 

 as a descriptive anatomist, and his claims to be regarded as a systematic 

 reformer would probably have been admitted in his lifetime. As it was 

 his scheme apparently fell flat, and not until many years had elapsed were 

 its merits at all generally recognized. 



Notice has next to be taken of a Memoir on the Employment of 

 Sternal Characters in establishing Natural Families among Birds, which 

 was read by De Blainville before the Academy of Sciences of Paris in 

 1815,^ but not published in full for more than five years later (Journ. 

 de Physique, xcii. pp. 185-215), though an abstract forming part of a 

 Prodrome d'une nouvelle distribution du Regne Animal, appeared earlier {op. 

 cit. Ixxxiii. pp. 252, 253, 258, 259 ; and Bull. Soc. Philomat. Paris, 1816, 

 p. 110). This is a very disappointing performance, since the author 

 observes that, notwithstanding his new classification of Birds is based on 

 a study of the sternal apparatus, yet, because that lies wholly within the 

 body, he is compelled to have recourse to such outward characters as are 

 afforded by the proportion of the limbs and the disposition of the toes — 

 even as had been the practice of most ornithologists before him ! It is 

 evident that the features of the sternum on which De Blainville chiefly 

 relied, though he states the contrary, were those drawn from its posterior 

 margin, which no very extensive experience of specimens is needed to 

 shew are of comparatively slight value ; for the number of '^ ^chancrures" 

 — notches as they have sometimes been called in English — when they 

 exist, goes but a very short way as a guide, and is so variable in some very 

 natural groups as to be even in that short way occasionally misleading. ^ 

 There is no appearance of his having taken into consideration the far 

 more trustworthy characters furnished by the anterior part of the sternum, 

 as well as by the coracoids and the furcula. Still De Blainville made 

 some advance in a right direction, as for instance by elevating the Parrots ^ 

 and the Pigeons as " Ordres," equal in rank to that of the Birds-of-Prey 

 and some others. According to the testimony of L'Herminier (for whom 

 see later) he divided the " Passereaux " into two sections, the "faiix " and 

 the " vrais " ; but, while the latter were very correctly defined, the former 

 were most arbitrarily separated from the " Grimpeurs." He also split his 

 Grallatores and Natatores (practically identical with the Grallse. and Anseres 

 of Linnseus) each into four sections ; but he failed to see — as on his own 

 principles he ought to have seen — that each of these sections was at least 

 equivalent to almost any one of his other " Ordres." He had, however, 

 the courage to act up to his own professions in collocating the Rollers 



^ Nqt 1812, as has sometimes been stated, probably on his own authority {loc. cit. 

 p. 110), bat this seems to be a misprint for 1815. 



2 Cf. Philos. Trans. 1869, p. 337, note. 



^ This view had been long before taken by Willughby, but abandoned by later 

 authors. 



