31 



Ornithologists to acquire a far more" complete view of evolutionary 

 classification than was previously at their disposal^ and the interest is 

 heightened by the ' Stammbaume/ in which he endeavours to trace the 

 apparent development of the Class ^^Aves" from its primitive ancestors. 

 It will be many years before anything so elaborate as Prof. Fiirbringer's 

 work meets the eye of the student of Ornithology, and for the better 

 comprehension of his conclusions Prof. Hans Gadow has given a very 

 timely resume in ' Nature ' (vol. xxxix. pp. 150-152, 177-181). 



It seems to me, looking at Prof. Fiirbringer's ' Stammbaume/ that 

 he fairly fulfils our notion of what may have been the gradual evolution 

 of the Class " Aves " from its parent stem or stems in the distant 

 past. The little assistance afforded by the geological record points to 

 the conclusion that the most ancient forms differed no more radically 

 (if we except the possession of teeth) from existing birds than many of 

 the latter do from each other at the present day, whilst the loss of the 

 intervening links must have been enormous. 



First let us take the aberrant and outlying forms which caused 

 FUrbringer to rank them as Intermediate Suborders or Gentes. There 

 comes first in order his Suborder Palamedeiformes. Dr. Gadow para- 

 phrases the author^s ideas as follows : — ^'They show many connecting- 

 points with the Anseres, Steganopodes, and Pelargo-Herodii ; but their 

 reception into the Pelargornithes is rendered impossible by various funda- 

 mental and primitive peculiarities. Through their intestines and 

 pterylosis they somewhat resemble Rhea. "Whether we place them 

 nearer to the Anseres than to the Pelargi depends upon the taxonomic 

 value which we happen to attribute to their skeletal, muscular, intes- 

 tinal, or external features.^' 



Mr. Seebohm {vide infra) places the Palamedese with the Lamelli- 

 rostres, but the lack of uncinate processes to the ribs shows that they 

 are a very aberrant group. 



Another assemblage of birds which troubled Fiirbringer was the 

 Petrels, which he puts as an Intermediate Suborder Procellariiformes. 

 " They are certainly a very old and isolated group " [cf. Gadow, /. c.) . 

 With Seebohm they form a Suborder of his Galliformes. 



Fiirbringer also made an " Intermediate Suborder" of the Penguins. 

 Once more I quote Gadow^s most useful summary : — 



" The Penguins are a very old fauiiiy, because the genus Palcsetidi/ptes shows that 

 they had become specialized into diving and swimming birds, with total loss of the 

 power of flight, in the Eocene period, or probably even earlier. Fiu-briiiger calls the 

 Penguins Trit-Apteuornithes, indicating that they, like the Great Auk, the Dodo, 

 Ocydromus, and others, have lost their power of flight later than the Ratitas. A sharp 

 line between Deutero- and Trit-Aptenornithes cannot, however, be drawn, since 

 Cnemiornis, Gastomis, &c., are intermediate forms, just as Stringops is now on the 

 way to be Aptenornithic. Many of the characters of the Penguins, generally con- 

 sidered as primitive, are partly ' pseudo-primitive,' i. e. phylogenetically reduced and 



