INTRODUCTION 



85 



to have been acquired by the bones of the palate through the fact that so 

 great a master of the art of exposition selected them as fitting examples 

 upon which to exercise his skill.i At the same time it must be stated 

 this selection was not premeditated by him, but forced itself upon him as 

 his investigations proceeded.^ In reply to some critical remarks {This, 

 1868, pp. 85-96), chiefly aimed at shewing the inexpediency of relying 

 solely on one set of characters, especially when those afforded by the 

 palatal bones were not, even within the limits of Families, wholly 

 diagnostic, the author {This, 1868, pp. 357-362) announced a slight 

 modification of his original scheme, by introducing three more groups 

 into it, and concluded by indicating how its bearings upon the great 

 question of "Genetic Classification" might be represented so far as the 

 different groups of Carinatas are concerned : — 



The above scheme, in Huxley's opinion, nearly represents the affinities of 

 the various carinate groups, — the great difficulty being to determine the 

 relations to the rest of the Goccygomorphse, Psittacomorphx and ^githognathee, 

 which he indicated "only in the most doubtful and hypothetic fashion." 

 Almost simultaneously with this he expounded more particularly (Proc. 

 Zool. Soc. 1868, pp. 294-319) the groups of which he believed the 

 Aledoromorphse to be composed and the relations to them of some outlying 

 forms usually regarded as Gallinaceous, the Turnicidge (Hemipode) and 

 Pterodidee (Sand-Grouse), as well as the singular Hoactzin, for all three 

 of which he had to institute new groups — the last forming the sole repre- 

 sentative of his Heteromorphae. More than this, he entered upon their 

 Geographical Distribution, the facts of which important subject were, 



^ The notion of the superiority of the palatal bones to all others for purposes 

 of classification has pleased many persons, from the fact that these bones are not 

 unfrequently retained in the dried skins of Birds sent home by collectors in foreign 

 counti'ies, and are therefore available for study, while such bones as the sternum and 

 pelvis are rarely preserved. The common practice of ordinary collectors, until at 

 least very recently, has been tersely described as being to " shoot a bird, take off its 

 skin and throw away its characters." 



^ Perhaps this may be partially explained by the fact that the Museum of the 

 College of Surgeons, in which these investigations were chiefly carried on, like most 

 other museums, contained a much larger series of the heads of Birds than of their 

 entire skeletons or of any other portion of the skeleton. Consequently the materials 

 available for the comparison of different forms consisted in great part of heads only. 



