g2 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS 



Gypselidx, whicli no sane person would doubt to be homogeneous and 

 natural. The femoral vessels formed another subject of investigation, 

 and were found to exhibit as much exceptional conformation as those of 

 the neck — for instance in Centropus phasianus, one of the Birds known as 

 CouCALS, the femoral artery accompanies the femoral vein, though it does 

 not do so in another species of the genus, G. rufipenrm, nor in any other 

 of the GucuUdas (to which Family the genus Gentropus has been always 

 assigned) examined by Garrod. Nor are the results of the very great 

 labour which he bestowed upon the muscular conformation of the thigh 

 in Birds any more conclusive when they come to be impartially and 

 carefully considered. Myology was with him always a favourite study, and 

 he may be not unreasonably supposed to have had a strong feeling as to 

 its efficacy for systematic ends. It was in favour of an arrangement based 

 upon the muscles of the thigh, and elaborated by him in 1874, that he 

 gave up the arrangement he had published barely more than a year 

 before based upon the conformation of the nostrils. Nevertheless it 

 appears that even the later of the two methods did not eventually content 

 him, and this was only to be expected, though he is said by Forbes (Ibis, 

 1881, p. 28) to have remained "satisfied to the last as to the naturalness 

 of the two main groups into which he there divided birds " — Homalo- 

 GONATiE and Anomalogonat^. The key to this arrangement lay in the 

 presence or absence of the ambiens muscle, " not because of its own intrinsic 

 importance, but because its presence is always associated with peculiarities 

 in other parts never found in any Anomalogonatous bird. " Garrod thought 

 that so great was the improbability of the same combination of three or 

 four different characters (such as an accessory femoro-caudal muscle, a 

 tufted oil-gland and cmca) arising independently in different Birds that 

 similar combinations of characters could only be due to blood-relationship. 

 The ingenuity with which he found and expressed these combinations of 

 characters is worthy of all praise ; the regret is that time was wanting 

 for him to think out all their consequences, and that he did not take also 

 into account other and especially osteological characters. Every osteologist 

 must recognize that the neglect of these makes Garrod's proposed classi- 

 fication as unnatural as any that had been previously drawn up, and 

 more unnatural than many. So much is this the case that, with the 

 knowledge we have that ere his death he had already seen the need of 

 introducing some modifications into it, its reproduction here, even in the 

 briefest abstract possible, would not be advisable. Two instances, however, 

 of its failure to shew natural affinities or differences may be cited. The 

 first Order Galliformes of his Subclass Homalogonatse is made to consist 

 of three "Cohorts" — Struthiones, Gallinaceee and Psittaci — a somewhat 

 astonishing alliance ; but even if that be allowed to pass, we find the 

 second " Cohort " composed of the Families Palamedeidse, Gallinee, Rallidee, 

 Otididee (containing two Subfamilies, the Bustards and the Flamingoes), 

 Musophagidse and Guculidse. Again the Subclass Anomalogonatse, includes 

 three Orders — Piciformes, Passeriformes, Gypseliformes — a preliminary to 

 which at first sight no exception need be taken ; but immediately we look 

 into details we find the Alcedinidse. placed in the first Order and the 

 Meropidae in the second, together with the Passeres and a collection of 



