55 



have been a most accomplished observer. The study of Pterylography 

 is being pursued by two British Ornithologists^ Mr. Py craft and 

 Mr, Goodchild_, the last-named having recently published an essay- 

 on " The Cubital Coverts of the EuornithcB in relation to Taxo- 

 nomy •'' in the ^Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh^ (vol. 

 X. pp. 317-333). Some of the conclusions arrived at in Mr. Good- 

 child's ' Tabular View ' are curious, as, for instance, when he shows 

 that the Paradiseida are witliout median coverts, a character peculiar to 

 the Cypselidce, Trochilidce, and Trogonidce. The subject is a very inter- 

 esting one for systematists, and the characters brought forward by 

 Mr. Goodchild may prove of some value in the classification of birds. 



What is wanted now is that a practised osteologist like Dr. Shufeldt 

 should give us diagnostic characters for the families, such as Huxley, 

 in 1867, and Seebohm, in 1890, have given for the Orders and Suborders 

 of Birds, and the benefit to Ornithological Science would be enormous. 



Ladies now, too, are in the field, and foremost among them are 

 Miss Lindsay, with an essay on the Avian Sternum (P. Z. S. 1885, 

 pp. 681-716) ; Mdlle. Fanny Bignon, who has written a considerable 

 memoir in the ^Memoires de la Societe Zoologique de France' (1889), 

 pp. 260-320, pis. x.-xiii."^' ; and Miss Mary Walker, whose essay '' On 

 the form of the quadrate bone in Birds " was published in 1888 in 

 ' Studies from the Museum of Zoology in University College, Dundee.' 



Just as this Address was going to press, Mr. Lydekker's ' Catalogue 

 of the Fossil Birds in the British Museum' appeared. I have no 

 space left to do justice to this work, which will be extremely useful to 

 Ornithologists, the arrangement of the Ratitae and the descriptions 

 of specimens being very important. 



I have endeavoured in the foregoing pages to take up the parable of 

 Professor Newton, and to bring the history of the Classification of Birds 

 up to date. I have, of course, not been able, within the limits of a 

 Presidential Address, to enter into the subject with the minuteness of 

 an author in the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica,' but I have tried to place 

 before you the various schemes of classification propounded during the 

 last few years ; and if, by accident, I have omitted to mention the 

 work of any of my contemporaries, I can honestly say that it is a fault 

 of omission, not of intention, and that in a review of a subject like the 

 Classification of Birds it is not always certain that one can pick up all 

 the threads which are scattered over a very wide area. 



1 now proceed to the more strictly personal portion of my Address ; 

 for my colleagues will expect that, having criticized the classifications of 

 my forerunners, I should give them some of my own ideas on the 

 arrangement of Birds. But I must state at the outset that I would 



* " Contributions a I'etude de la pueumacite cliez les Oiseaiix. Les cellules aeriennea 

 cervico-cepkaliques des Oiseaux et de lem-s rapports avec les os de la tete.'' 



