82 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS 



In the spring of the year 1867 the late Prof. Huxley, to the delight 

 of an appreciative audience, delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons 

 of England a course of lectures on Birds, and it is much to be regretted 

 that his many engagements hindered him from publishing in its entirety 

 his elucidation of the anatomy of the Class, and the results which he 

 drew from his investigations of it ; for never assuredly had the subject 

 been attacked with greater skill and power, or, since the days of Buffon, had 

 Ornithology been set forth with greater eloquence. To remedy, in some 

 degree, this unavoidable loss, and to preserve at least a portion of the 

 fruits of his labours, Huxley, a few weeks after, presented an abstract of 

 his researches to the Zoological Society, in whose Proceedings for the same 

 year it will be found printed (pp. 415-472) as a paper ' On the Classifica- 

 tion of Birds, and on the taxonomic value of the modifications of certain 

 of the cranial bones observable in that Class.' Starting from the basis 

 (which, undeniably true as it is, not a little shocked many of his 

 ornithological hearers) " that the phrase ' Birds are greatly modified 

 Reptiles ' would hardly be an exaggerated exj^ression of the closeness " 

 of the resemblance between the two Classes, which he had previously 

 brigaded under the name of Sauropsida (as he had brigaded the Pisces and 

 Amphibia as Ichthyopsida), he drew in bold outline both their likenesses 

 and their differences, and then proceeded to enquire how the Aves could 

 be most appropriately subdivided into Orders, Suborders and Families. 

 In this course of lectures he had already dwelt at some length on the 

 insufficiency of the characters on which such groups as had hitherto been 

 thought to be established were founded ; but for the consideration of this 

 part of his subject there was no room in the present paper, and the reasons 

 why he arrived at the conclusion that new means of philosophically and 

 successfully separating the class must be sought were herein left to be in- 

 ferred. The upshot, however, admits of no uncertainty : the Class Aves was 

 held to be composed of three "Orders" — Saurur^ (p. 814); RATiTiE 



Birds,' communicated by Prof. Lilljeborg to the Zoological Society in 1866, and 

 published in its Proceedings for that year (pp. 5-20), since it was immediately after 

 reprinted by the Smithsonian Institution, and with that authorization has exercised a 

 great influence on the opinions of American ornithologists. Otherwise the scheme 

 would hardly need notice here. This paper is indeed little more than an English 

 translation of one published by the author in the annual volume {Arsskrift) of the 

 Scientific Society of Upsala for 1860 ; and, belonging to the pre-Darwinian epoch, 

 should perhaps have been more properly treated before, but that at the time of its 

 original appearance it failed to attract attention. The chief merit of the scheme perhaps 

 is that, contrary to nearly every precedent, it begins with the lower and rises to the 

 higher groups of Birds, which is of course the natural mode of proceeding, and one 

 therefore to be commended. Otherwise the "principles " on which it is founded are 

 not clear to the ordinary zoologist. One of them is said to be " irritability," which 

 is explained to mean, not "muscular strength alone, but vivacity and activity 

 generally," and on this ground it is stated that the Passeres should be placed 

 highest in the Class. But those who know the habits and demeanour of many of 

 the Limicolm would no doubt rightly claim for them much more " vivacity and 

 activity " than is possessed by most Passeres. •" Irritability " does not seem to form 

 a character that can be easily appreciated either as to quantity or quality ; in fact most 

 persons would deem it quite immeasurable, and, as such, removed from practical con- 

 sideration. Moreover, Prof. Lilljeborg's scheme, being actually an adaptation of that 

 of Sundevall, of which we shall have to speak almost immediately, may possibly be 

 left for the present with these remarks. 



