514 RECORD OF SCIENCE FOR 1886. 



ingof the humming-birds with the swifts, Mr. Goodchild has something 

 to say. 



Mr. Goodchild examined the wliole of the Gould collection of hum- 

 ming-birds, and "checking the results by comparing them with those 

 made on a large seriesof other specimens," he was "convinced that one 

 general type of wing-pattern characterizes the whole of these birds ; it 

 is of a very simple character," and distinguished by the fact that " the 

 proximal lapping row of median coverts found throughout all the pas- 

 seres is absent entirely" in the humming-birds. These " might, indeed, 

 be described as possessing no median coverts at all, the place of these 

 being taken up by feathers having the same mode of imbrication as the 

 lesser coverts. All the feathers of each series overlap outwards and 

 backwards from the vertebral axis towards the distal end of the wing 

 in these birds." 



Comparison of the swifts with the humming-birds was significant. 

 "Observations on the order of overlap in the wing of freshly killed 

 specimens of Gypsclus apus, afterwards extended by an examination of 

 the whole series of swifts in the national collection, showed that in these, 

 as in the humming-birds, no one series of feathers overlaps backward. 

 In fact the wing-pattern in the genera Cypsehis, AcanthyUs, Chcetura, 

 and CoUocalia''^ seemed to him to "differ in no essential respect from 

 that found throughout the trochilidte. So far as the disposition of the 

 wing cov^erts is concerned, the swifts and humming-birds agree among 

 themselves, and differ from all of the Passeriform birds, with the pos- 

 sible exception of the birds of paradise." 



The gallinaceous birds, according to Mr. Goodchild, rank "near to 

 the accipitrine," and "perhaps leading away from them somewhere 

 near the Polyborine birds." In the case of the turkey (MeJeagris) 

 "proximal overlap characterizes nearly all the median cubital coverts, 

 as in the Accipitrines," and in this respect " the turkey stands alone 

 amongst the Gallinae;" but neither in the turkey " nor in any one of the 

 Alecteropods do any traces of the upper wing-coverts exist." 



Among the pigeons it is interesting to note that the large goura is 

 distinguished from the ordinary pigeons by some well-marked charac- 

 ters. The cubital covering exemplified in the goura approaches that of 

 the curassows and is very different from that of the typical pigeons. 

 The differences appears to Mr. Goodchild to be "both striking and sig- 

 nificant," and he has correlated the differences observed in the cubital 

 coverts with other characters. 



(1) "In the normal pigeons an oil-gland is present; but is absent in 

 Goura.^^ 



(2) " In the normal pigeons the tail-feathers are 12 in number; while 

 there are 16 in 6'owrrt." 



(3) "In the normal i)igeons the pterylosis is columbine; and is galline 

 in Gonray 



(4) "In the normal pigeons cieca are present; but are absent in 

 Qoiira.'''' 



