No. r.] THE CRANIUM IN THE OWLS. 163 



Upon consulting the plates and text of so distinguished an 

 authority as Professor Max Furbringer, " Untersuchungen zur 

 Morphologic und Systematik der Vogel," we are to note that 

 there the Caprinndgi and Striges are considered as arising 

 from a common ancestral stock, the suborder Coraciiformes 

 of the order Coracornithes, and this last-named division is 

 quite apart from the order Pelargonithes, which contains 

 the Accipitres. 



In 1892 a no less careful examiner of the structure of birds 

 than Prof. Hans Gadow published in the Proceedings of the 

 Zoological Society of that year a very excellent article, in 

 many respects, upon the " Classification of Birds," and in the 

 scheme set forth in that work Gadow placed the Striges in a 

 group by themselves, standing between the parrots and the 

 goat-suckers, and far removed from the Accipitres. Huxley, 

 Newton, Furbringer, and Gadow must have especial weight 

 attached to their opinions in the matter of the classification 

 of Aves, for each and all of them carefully looked into and 

 compared the anatomical structure of the members of this 

 puzzling division of the Vertebrata. Many of the taxonomers 

 of birds have not done this, and consequently are often guilty 

 of classifying these forms upon such characters as strike their 

 eye after a superficial examination of the general characters 

 presented on the part of "series of museum skins." 



In as yet unpublished MSS. the present writer has said : 

 " Regarding the owls as a whole, they are to be considered as 

 forming a group of nocturnal birds of markedly raptorial habits. 

 Some of the species, however, are largely diurnal in their 

 ways. They are not especially related to the Accipitres, but 

 are, on the other hand, remotely allied with the Caprimulgi. 

 What we now know of the structure of such forms as Stea- 

 tornis and Podargiis sufficiently indicates this much," 



This opinion is based upon an examination of the anatomy 

 of the last two forms mentioned ; upon the osteology of all 

 the species of North-American owls, Accipitres, Caprimulgi, 

 and a host of forms suspected of having alliance with these 

 groups. 



In 1894 Mr. Hubert Lyman Clark published in the Pro- 



