g8 DICTION AR Y OF BIRDS 



contemporary Ratite type as surely testify to a more exalted position. 

 The explanation of this complicated if not contradictory state of things 

 seemed then out of reach ; but one, as will directly be shewn, has since 

 been offered by Prof. Fiirbringer. Moreover, the uncertainty which then 

 prevailed, even if it has now wholly ceased, among the best-informed 

 ornithologists as to the respective origin of Eatitse and Carinatee, was at 

 that time considered with a decided leaning to the view that the last 

 were evolved from the first. The labours of the distinguished zoologist 

 just named have now shewn the strong probability, if one may not say 

 the certainty, of that view being wrong and of the Ratite being a degraded 

 type descended from the Carinate.^ Still further, it may here be remarked 

 that there is now no need to presume (as was then presumed) the former 

 existence of Ratites with biconcave vertebrae, since all Birds had most 

 likely acquired saddle-shaped vertebrse before any forms began to retro- 

 grade in the direction of Ratitee, while the ancestors of the modern 

 Garinatse possibly lost their teeth as their biconcave vertebrae were 

 improving into the higher form.^ 



Seldom does it happen that in a professedly popular work any 

 novelty is shewn unless it be of a kind essentially unscientific ; but the 

 Fourth Volume of the Standard Natural History, which treats of Birds 

 and was published at Boston in Massachusetts in 1885, is a notable 

 exception. Even if some of its originality may be said to lie in its 

 eclecticism,^ no one will refuse Dr. Stejneger's labour a conspicuous place 

 in a historical sketch of Systematic Ornithology. Though not sole author 

 of the book, indeed his name does not appear on the title-page, he has 

 admittedly written most of the descriptive portion,^ while there is no 

 question of the taxonomy being all his own and its basis is anatomical. 

 The whole volume compares most favourably with anything of the kind 

 that has appeared, whether before or since, and open as it may be on 

 many points to criticism,^ all who have used it must regret that it is not 

 better known in this coimtry. Here, however, we have but its Classifica- 

 tion to deal with ; and, considering the many new ideas and terms put 



1 It now seems to me curious that, having then suggested {tovi. cit. p. 44) that 

 Apteryx and Dinornis were degraded descendants of earlier Eatitse, I did not perceive 

 the possibility of those very Ratitie being degenerate forms. 



2 Prof. Marsh [Am. Journ. Sc. April 1879, and Odontornithes, pp. 180, 181) 

 stated that in the third cervical vertebra of Ichthyomis " we catch nature in the act 

 as it were " of modifying one form of vertebra into another, for this single vertebra in 

 Ichthyomis is in vertical section "moderately convex, while transversely it is strongly 

 concave ; thus presenting a near approach to the saddle-like articulation." He pro- 

 ceeded to point out that this specialized feature occurs at the first bend of the neck, 

 and, greatly facilitating motion in a vertical plane, is "mainly due originally to its 

 predominance." The form of the vertebrfe would accordingly seem to be as miich 

 correlated with the mobility of the neck as is the form of the sternum 'vvith the 

 faculty of flight. 



^ Gf. Gadow, Thier-reich, Vogel, ii. p. 48. 



•* His fellow-workers were Messrs. Barrows and Elliot, the former taking the 



Accipitres, and the latter Opisthocomi, GaUinie, Pterodetes\_^^, Columhie and 



Trochilidae, while Dr. J. S. Kingsley, the editor of the whole series, supplied the 

 account of the Psittaci. 



^ Especially ou matters of Nomenclature, a trifling but highly- contentious subject, 



which throughout the present work I have studiously tried to avoid. 



