76 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS 



produced uncertain results, especially when they have neglected its 

 anterior for its posterior part ; for in truth every bone of the skeleton 

 ought to be studied in all its details. Yet this distinguished zoologist 

 selects the sternum as furnishing the key to his primary groups or 

 " Orders " of the Class, adopting, as Merrem had done long before, the 

 same two divisions Carinatx and Batitee, naming, however, the former 

 Tropidosteriiii and the latter Homalosternii?- Some unkind fate has 

 hitherto hindered him from making known to the world the rest of his 

 researches in regard to the other bones of the skeleton till he reached the 

 head, and in the memoir cited he treats of the sternum of only a portion 

 of his first " Order." This is the more to be regretted by all ornithologists 

 since he intended to conclude with what to them would have been a very 

 great boon — the shewing in what way external characters coincided with 

 those presented by Osteology. It was also within the scope of his plan 

 to have continued on a more extended scale the researches on ossification 

 begun by L'Herminier, and thus M. Blanchard's investigations, if com- 

 pleted, would obviously have taken extraordinarily high rank among the 

 highest contributions to ornithology. As it is, the 32 pages we have of 

 them are of considerable importance ; for, in this unfortunately unfinished 

 memoir, he describes in some detail the several differences which the 

 sternum in a great many different groups of his Tropidosternii presents, 

 and to some extent makes a methodical disposition of them accordingly. 

 Thus he separates the Birds-of-Prey into three gx'eat groups — (1) the 

 ordinary Diurnal forms, including the Falconidse, and Vulturidse of the 

 systematist of his time, but distinguishing the American Vultures from 

 those of the Old World ; (2) Gijpogeranus (Secretary-bird) ; and (3) the 

 Owls. Next he places the Parrots, and then the vast assemblage of 

 " Passereaux " — which he declares to be all of one type, even genera like 

 Pipra (Manakin) and Pitta — and concludes with the somewhat hetero- 

 geneous conglomeration of forms, beginning with Cypselus (Swift), that 

 so many systematists have been accustomed to call Ficariae, though to 

 them as a group he assigns no name.'^ 



Important as are the characters afforded by the sternum, that bone 

 even with the whole sternal apparatus should obviously not be considered 

 alone. To aid ornithologists in their studies in this respect, Eyton, who 

 for many years had been forming a collection of Bird's skeletons, began 

 the publication of a series of plates representing them. The first part of 

 this work, Osteologia Avium, appeared early in 1859, and a volume was 

 completed in 1867. A supplement was issued in 1869, and a Second 

 Supplement, in three parts, between 1873 and 1875. The whole work 

 contains a great number of figures of Birds' skeletons and detached bones ; 

 but they are not so drawn as to be of much practical use, and the 



^ These terms were explained in his great work L' Organisation du Regne Animal, 

 Oiseaux (p. 16), begun in 1855, and unhappily unfinished, to mean exactly the same 

 as those applied by Merrem to his two primary divisions. 



- M. Blanchard's animadversions on the employment of external characters, and 

 on trusting to observations on the habits of Birds, called forth a rejoinder from Mr. 

 Wallace [Ibis, 1864, pp. 36-41), who successfully shewed that they are not altogether 

 to be despised. 



