j<? DICTIONARY OF BIRDS 



authority agrees with him ; out of them, however, he chose the Thrushes 

 and Warblers to stand first as his ideal " Centrum " — a selection which, 

 though in the opinion of the present writer erroneous, is still widely 

 followed. 



The points at issue between Cuvier and Etienue Geotfroy St.- 

 Hilaire before mentioned naturally attracted the attention of L'Her- 

 minier, who in 1836 presented to the French Academy the results of 

 his researches into the mode of growth of that bone which in the adult 

 Bird he had already studied to such good purpose. Unfortunately the 

 full account of his diligent investigations was never published. We can 

 only judge of his labours from an abstract (Gomptes Eendus, iii. j^p. 12-20, 

 and Ann. Sci. Nat. ser. 2, vi. pp. 107-115), and from the rej^ort upon them 

 by Isidore Geoffrey St.-Hilaire {Comjytes Rendus, iv. pp. 565-574), to 

 whom with others they were referred, and which is very critical in its 

 character. It were useless to conjecture why the whole memoir never 

 appeared, as the reporter recommended that it should ; but, whether, as 

 he suggested, the author's observations failed to establish the theories he 

 advanced or not, the loss of his observations in an extended form is 

 greatly to be regretted, for no one seems- to have continued the investi- 

 gations he began and to some extent carried out ; while, from his resi- 

 dence in Guadeloupe, he had peculiar advantages in studying certain 

 types of Birds not generally available, his remarks on them could not 

 fail to be valuable, quite irrespective of the interpretation he was led to 

 put upon them. L'Herminier arrived at the conclusion that, so far 

 from there being only two or three different modes by which the process 

 of ossification in the sternum is carried out, the number of different 

 modes is very considerable — almost each natural group of Birds having 

 its own. The principal theory which he hence conceived himself 

 justified in propounding was that instead of five being (as had been 

 stated) the maximum number of centres of ossification in the sternum, 

 there are no fewer than 7iine entering into the composition of the perfect 

 sternum of Birds in general, though in every species some of these nine 

 are wanting, whatever be the cojidition of development at the time of 

 examination. These nine theoretical centres or "pieces" L'Herminier 

 deemed to l)e disposed in three transverse ranks (rang^es), namely the 

 anterior or " prosternal," the middle or " mesosternal," and the posterior 

 " metasternal " — each rank consisting of three portions, one median 

 piece and two side-pieces. At the same time he seems, according to the 

 abstract of his memoir, to have made the somewhat contradictory asser- 

 tion that sometimes there are more than three pieces in each rank, and 

 in certain groups of Birds as many as six.^ 



■^ We shall perhaps be justified in assuming that this apparent inconsistenc}', and 

 others which present themselves, would be explicable if the whole memoir with the 

 necessary illustrations had been published. It would occujiy more space than can 

 here be allowed to give even the briefest abstract of the numerous observations which 

 follow the statement of his theory and on which it professedly rests. They extend 

 to more than a score of natural groups of Birds, and nearly each of them presents 

 some peculiar characters. Thus of the first rank of pieces he says that when all 

 exist they may be developed simultaneously, or that the two side-pieces may precede 

 the median, or again that the median may precede the side-pieces — according to the 



