14 CLASSIFICATION CHAP. 
to trace in the briefest way the line which has led to the most 
recent attempts, and to name those whose researches have pro- 
duced the results which may be fairly regarded as attained. 
First among them is Nitzsch (1806-1840), to whom followed 
Merrem (1812-1817), and after a few years L’Herminier 
(1827). These three worked quite independently, and in their 
lifetime little notice was taken of their labours; for, though 
there were good ornithologists among their contemporaries, little 
value was then set upon internal characters in this connexion. An 
improvement took place when the great Johannes Miiller (1846, 
1847) published his scheme for grouping the Passeres, which, 
though based on purely anatomical facts, was almost immediately 
accepted, chiefly through the simultaneous exertions of Dr. Cabanis, 
by systematists of the Old School. For twenty years no advance 
was made, for the morphological researches of Parker were not 
directly taxonomical; but Huxley (1867, 1868) started what 
was practically a new line of investigation, though it subse- 
quently appeared that up to a certain point it had been already 
suggested by Dr. Cornay (1842-1847). The impetus thus 
given was fortunately sustained, Huxley’s example being followed 
by Dr. Murie, and by two promising men, A. Garrod and W. 
A. Forbes, both of whom died at an early age, leaving their 
mark in work which, though much of it was crude, was that of 
true genius. Mr. Sclater (1880) has tried to bring the results 
of the whole four into harmony with pre-existing views, and 
a similar attempt was that of Dr. Stejneger (1885); but all 
were overshadowed by the monumental performance of Prof. 
Fiirbringer, whose Untersuchungen zur Morphologie und Syste- 
matik der Vogel, completed in 1888, must ever remain a record 
of unexampled labour, while his considerations on the derivation 
of Birds from Reptiles, and of the later groups of Birds from the 
earlier, whether his results be right or wrong, are of the utmost 
importance to the ornithologist. During the progress of this 
work the author was in frequent communication with Dr. Gadow, 
himself engaged on the ornithological portion of Bronn’s Zier- 
Reich, and thus the opinions of each were in many cases mutually 
affected. Dr. Gadow, on the completion of his undertaking, pro- 
pounded a scheme of classification, which is followed, with some 
slight modifications, in the present volume (see foregoing table). 
—it being, of course, understood that a lnear arrangement is, 
