THE OSPEEY. 



91 



Gray and Hartlaiib with the Passcres: but A. 

 Milne-Edward--^ demonstrated that it had gral- 

 line characteristics and approximated it to the 

 Rails and Herons. The Heliornithids themselves 

 "have been perhaps more tossed about from 

 pillar to post of the (unitholog'ical edifice than 

 most; they have mainly oscillated between the 

 Divers and Grebes on the one hand, and the 

 Rails on the other. ■" Beddard thinks that they 

 "form a distinct family which has traversed for 

 a certain distance the branch leading' from the 

 Rails to the" Loons. Cliionis is another of those 

 eqviivocal types which almost equally approaches 

 and deviates from, and has been classed with, 

 waders, swimmers, and g^allinaceous birds, and 

 at last was reg^arded by Coues and Kidder "as a 

 connecting' link, closing' the narrow gap be- 

 tween the Plovers and Gulls of the present day," 

 The.se instances are sufficient to indicate the 

 want of definiteness and the uncertainty of the 

 characteristics of the so-called orders of birds. 



OSCINE FAMILIES. 



The families of Oscine birds are at least as un- 

 satisfactory as the orders. They are based on 

 such characters as the various degrees of devel- 

 opment of a single wing feather (the first prim- 

 ary), the form of the bill, whether the bill has a 

 slight notch or none, whether there are feathers 

 over the nostrils or not, and even on size and 

 color. For example, the Coii-idcr are diag'nosed 

 as being "larger (wing' more than 4.00 inches)" 

 and thus contrasted with the Paiidcc. which are 

 "smaller (wing less than 4.00 inches);" the Birds 

 of Paradi.se are segregated in a family distin- 

 guished from the Crows only because there is an 

 exuberance of feathers sonieivherc or other (in 

 no two g'enera the same), and the most distinct- 

 ive character that has been found for the Tiir- 

 didcr is the spotting of the breast of the young. 

 Nor is this protest against the inordinate value 

 of some of the groups of birds the first made by 

 myself, 



I am tempted here to indulge in a remi- 

 niscence which may interest you, A quarter of 

 a century ago. Prof. Baird, having nearly 

 completed the three volumes of the "History 

 of American |Land] Birds." by Baird, Brewer 

 and Ridgway, asked me to write an intro- 

 duction giving' the general aspect of ornithol- 

 ogy and a synopsis of the major groups down to 

 the families. I was then his guest at Peak's 

 Lsland, and one bright afternoon in Aug'ust (1873) 

 I dictated to his stenographic secretary the 

 matter appearing as the first three and a third 

 pages in the introduction to the History. Sub- 

 sequently, on my return to Washington, I got 

 together all the skeletons and skulls of birds that 

 could be found, and, although I had been disap- 

 pointed previoush-, hoped to be able to discover 

 osteological or other anatomical characters that 

 would co-ordinate with the external features 

 generally used to distinguish families. All my 

 efforts were fruitless, although I found charac- 

 ters of minor importance, but on account of the 

 paucity of the material could not satisfy my.self 

 of the value of those characters. Various de- 

 mands on my time deteriel me from pursuing 

 the investigation further and the knowledge 

 that my views would not harmonize at all with 

 those expressed in the body of the work added 

 force to reasons for declining to do more. Pro- 



fessor Baird, with his usual liberality for heter- 

 odoxy, expressed perfect willingness to tolerate 

 the expression of difference of opinion, but I 

 deemed it best to persist in declining. Finally 

 Dr. Coues came to Washington, was appealed 

 to by Prof. Baird. and undertook the completion 

 of the introduction. Doubtless, the work gained 

 by his accession and, reading between the lines, 

 it would .seem that he shared .some of my views 

 respecting the taxonomic value of the groups, 

 but was willing to follow in the current for the 

 time being, and appeared to accept groups on 

 the best terms he could discover or invent to 

 condone them. 



Most of the g^enerally admitted families of 

 birds outside of the Passerines appear to me to 

 be well founded, but I cannot regard the Oscine 

 so-called families as such. The extremely triv- 

 ial characters which have been used to discrim- 

 inate them are not only insignificant when com- 

 pared with those used by students of other 

 classes to differentiate families, but they are 

 insig^nificant even when contrasted with those 

 used to distinguish families in other groups of 

 birds. To entitle the sections of Oscines 

 generally called families as such, is to obscure 

 and falsify our knowledge of structure and to 

 give a distorted idea of the group. The Os- 

 cines stand out as a remarkably homogeneous 

 group of over six thousand species (more than 

 half of the class), and thus contrast strongly 

 with most other groups, whose representatives 

 are few in number. To substitute the idea of 

 number for morphology is unscientific and 

 should not be encouraged by scientific men. 

 Defense of the families has been made on the 

 ground that because the species are so numer- 

 ous, families should be made of the leading' 

 divisions. This argument is tantamount to 

 the contention that the knowledge of the fact 

 itself should be suppressed or disguised. 



Objects should be called hy their right names. 

 If the groups in question are confessed to lack 

 family characters, thej- should not be designated 

 as families. Let a lesson be taken from other 

 zoologists. There are families of insects — the 

 Carabids and Scarabeids among' beetles, and the 

 Ichneunuinids and Chalcidids among Hymen- 

 opters, for example — which contain nearly as 

 many as or even more species than are known 

 of birds, and yet there is no great difficulty in 

 subordinating the constituent groups under a 

 family designation. It is to hoped that the 

 Ornithologrists" LTnion will re-open this question 

 of classification and be guided by morphology 

 and not by arithmetic. 



Respectfully submitting this question of taxon- 

 omy to the examination of the American Orni- 

 thologists' Union, we may await their criticism 

 until the time comes for us to act on the ques- 

 tion. If decision should not be rendered before 

 that time, we mig'ht take the initiative and eval- 

 uate the groups generally called families as sub- 

 families. Whether we will be able to recognize 

 more than one family among the CJscines will be 

 a question whose consideration we can also defer 

 till it is time to act. 



The chief objection to the degradation of the 

 taxonomic rank of the Oscine group I have 

 heard is that the term family is needed on ac- 

 count of the multiplicity of the species to be 

 arranged. This, however, is no valid reason. 



