j^ DICTIONARY OF BIRDS 



discover the Natural Families of Birds, and had been pursuing a series of 

 researches into their vascular system, published the result, at Halle in 

 Saxony, in his Ohservationes de Avium arteria carotide communi, in 

 which is included a classification drawn up in accordance with the varia- 

 tion of structure which that important vessel presented in the several 

 groups that he had opportunities of examining. By this time he had 

 visited several of the principal museums on the Continent, among others 

 Leyden (where Temminck Uved) and Paris (where he had frequent inter- 

 course with Cuvier), thus becoming acquainted with a considerable number 

 of exotic forms that had hitherto been inaccessible to him. Consequently 

 his labours had attained to a certain degree of completeness in this direc- 

 tion, and it may therefore be expedient here to name the different groups 

 which he thus thought himself entitled to consider established. They are 

 as follows : — 



I. AvES Carinat^ [L'H. " Oiseaux Normaux "]. 



A. Aves CarinatEe aerea;. 



1. Accipitrinie [VS. 1, 2 partim, 3] ; 2. Passerinw [L'H. 18] ; 3. Alacrochires [VH. 



6, 7] ; 4. Cuculinm [L'H. 8, 9, 10 (qu. 11, 12 ?)] ; 5. Picinm [L'H. 15, 16] ; 6. 



Psittacinee [L'H. 5] ; 7. Lipoglossge [L'H. 13, 14, 17] ; 8. Amphibolse [L'H. 4]. 



B. Aves Carinatas terrestres. 

 1. ColumUnse [L'H. 19] ; 2. Gallinaccns [L'H. 20]. 



C. Aves Carinatae aquaticae. 



Grallffi. 

 1. Aleetorides (= Dicholophus + Otis) [L'H. 2 partim, 26 partim] ; 2. GruinsR [L'H. 

 23] ; 3. Fulicariw [L'H. 22] ; 4. Herodim [L'H. 24 partim] ; 5. Pelargi [L'H. 

 24 partim, 25]; 6. Odontoglossi (=: Phcenico2}terus) [L'H. 26 partim]; 7. 

 Limicolas [L'H. 26 paene omnes]. 



Palmatffi. 

 8. LoTigipennes [L'H. 27] ; 9. Nasutis [L'H. 28] ; 10. Vnguirostres [L'H. 30] ; 11, 

 Steganopodes [L'H. 29] ; 12. Pygopodes [L'H. 31, 32, 33, 34]. 



II. Aves Ratit^ [L'H. "Oiseaux Anomaux"]. 



To enable the reader to compare the several grouj^s of Nitzsch with 

 the Families of L'Herminier, the numbers applied by the latter to his 

 Families are suffixed in square brackets to the names of the former ; and, 

 disregarding the order of sequence, which is here immaterial, the essential 

 correspondence of the two systems is worthy of all attention, for it 

 obviously means that these two investigators, starting from different points,, 

 must have been on the right track, when they so often coincided as to the 

 limits of what they considered to be, and what we are now almost justified 

 in calling. Natural Groups.^ But it must be observed that the classifica- 

 tion of Nitzsch, just given, rests much more on characters furnished by 



^ Whether Nitzsch was cognizant of L'Herminier's views is in no way apparent. 

 The latter 's name seems not to be even mentioned by him, but Nitzsch was in Paris 

 in the summer of 1827, and it is almost impossible tliat he should not have heard of 

 L'Herminier's labours, unless the relations between the followers of Cuvier, to whom 

 Nitzsch attached himself, and those of De Blainville, whose pupil L'Herminier was, 

 were such as to forbid any communication between the rival schools. Yet we have 

 L'Herminier's evidence that Cuvier gave him every assistance. Nitzsch's silence, both 

 on this occasion and afterwards, is very curious ; but he cannot be accused of plagiarism, 

 for the scheme given above is only an amplification of that foreshadowed by him (as 

 already mentioned) in 1820 — a scheme which seems to have been equally unknown to 

 L'Herminier, perhaps through linguistic difficulty. 



