22 



I. X I 'I 1 H L G Y 



The preceding list is given to shew tin; very marked 

 agreement of L'Herminier's results compared with those 

 obtained fifty years later by another investigator, who 

 approached the subject from an entirely different, though 

 still osteological, basis. The sequence of the Families 

 adopted is of course open to much criticism ; but that 

 would be wasted upon it at the present day ; and the 

 cautious naturalist will remember that it is generally 

 difficult and in most cases absolutely impossible to deploy 

 even a small section of the Animal Kingdom into line. 

 So far as a linear arrangement will permit, the above list 

 is very creditable, and will not only pass muster, but 

 cannot easily be surpassed for excellence even at this 

 moment. Experience has shewn that a few of the Families 

 are composite, and therefore require further splitting ; but 

 examples of actually false grouping cannot be said to 

 occur. The most serious fault perhaps to be found is the 

 intercalation of the Ducks (No. 30) between the Pelicans 

 and the Grebes — but every systematist must recognize 

 the difficulty there is in finding a place for the Ducks in 

 any arrangement we can at present contrive that shall be 

 regarded as satisfactory. Many of the excellencies of 

 L'Herminier's method could not be pointed out without 

 too great a sacrifice of space, because of the details into 

 which it would be necessary to enter ; but the trenchant 

 way in which he showed that the " Passereaux" — a group 

 of which Cuvier had said " Son caractere semble d'abord 

 purement negatif," and had then failed to define the 

 limits — differed so completely from every other assem- 

 blage, while maintaining among its own innumerable 

 members an almost perfect essential homogeneity, is very 

 striking, and shews how admirably ho could grasp his sub- 

 ject. Not less conspicuous are his merits in disposing of 

 the groups of what are ordinarily known as Water-birds, his 

 indicating the affinity of the Hails (No. 22) to the Cranes 

 (No. 23), and the severing of the latter from the Herons 

 (No. 24). His union of the Snipes, Sandpipers, and 

 Plovers into one group (No. 20) and the alliance, especially 

 dwelt upon, of that group with the Gulls (No. 27) are 

 steps which, though indicated by Merrem, are here for the 

 first time clearly laid down ; and the separation of the 

 Gulls from the Petrels (No. 28) — a step in advance already 

 taken, it is true, by Illiger — is here placed on indefeasible 

 ground. With all this, perhaps on account of all this, 

 L'Herminier's efforts did not find favour with his scientific 

 superiors, and for the time things remained as though his 

 investigations had never been carried on. 1 

 Nitzsch. Two years later Nitzsch, who was indefatigable in his 

 endeavour to discover the Natural Families of Birds, and 

 had been pursuing a series of researches into their vascular 

 system, published the result, at Halle in Saxony, in his 

 Observationes de Avium arteria carotide communi, in which 

 is included a classification drawn up in accordance with the 

 variation of structure which that important vessel presented 

 in the several groups that he had opportunities of examin- 

 ing. By this time he had visited several of the principal 

 museums on the Continent, among others Leyden (where 

 Temminck resided) and Paris (where he had frequent 

 intercourse with Cuvier), thus becoming acquainted with 

 a considerable number of exotic forms that had hitherto 

 been inaccessible to him. Consequently his lain mis had 

 attained to a certain degree of completeness in this direc- 

 tion, and it may therefore be expedient here to name the 

 different groups which he thus thought himself entitled to 

 consider establis hed. They are as follows : — 



1 With the exception of a brief ami wholly inadequate notice in the 

 Edinburgh Journal of Natural History (i. p 90), tin present writer 

 i ■■: not aware of attention having been directed t>> L'Herminier's labours 

 I , N Briti a ornithologists for several years after; but considering how 

 they were employing themselves at the time (as is shewn in another 

 place) this is not surprising. 



I. Aves Cai'.inat.k [L'H. Oiseaux Normaux"]. 



A. Aves Carinatae aerese. 

 1. Accipitrinte [I. 'II. 1, 2 partim, 3]; 2. Passerines [L'H. IS]; 3. 

 MacrocHres [L'H. 6, 7]; -1. Cuculinee [L'H. 8, 0, 10 (qu. 11, 

 12?)]; 5. Picinse [L'H. 15, 16]; 0. Psittacinm [L'H. 5] J 7. 

 XApoglossss [L'H, 13, 1-1, 17]; 8. Amphibolse. [L'H. 4]. 

 I;. Aves ( larinatae terrestres. 

 1. Columbinm [L'H. 19]; 2. Gallinacex [L'H. 20]. 

 C. Aves Carinatae aquatics. 

 Grallie. 

 1. Alectorides {=-Dicholophus+Otis) [L'H. 2 partim, 26 partim]; 

 2. Gruinse [L'H. 23]; 3. Fulimrise [L'H. 22]; 1. Herodias 

 [L'H. 2-1 partim]; :".. Pelargi [L'H. 24 partim, 25]; 6. Odonto- 

 i//u.\.si {■■--I'lm iiii-i'jili rut:) [L'H. 20 partim]; 7. Limicolm [L'H. 

 26 pane onines]. 



Palmatse. 

 8. Longipennes [L'H. 27] ; !•. .\'u::u/:r [L'H. 28] ; 10. Uhguirostres 

 [L'H. 30]; 11. Steganopodes [L'H. 29]; 12. Pygopodes [L'H. 

 31, 32, 33, 34]. 



II. Aves Katit.k [L'H. "Oiseaux Anomaux"]. 



To enable the reader to compare the several groups of 

 Nitzsch with the Families of L'Herminier, the numbers 

 applied by the latter to his Families are suffixed in square 

 brackets to the names of the former ; and, disregarding the 

 order of sequence, which is here immaterial, the essential 

 correspondence of the two systems is worthy of all atten- 

 tion, for it obviously means that these two investigators, 

 starting from different points, must have been on the right 

 track, when they so often coincided as to the limits of 

 what they considered to be, and what we are now almost 

 justified in calling, Natural Groups. 2 - But it must bo 

 observed that the classification of Nitzsch, just given, rests 

 much more on characters furnished by the general struc- 

 ture than on those furnished by the carotid artery only. 

 Among all the species (188, he tells us, in number) of 

 which he examined specimens, he found only four varia- 

 tions in the structure of that vessel, namely : — 



1. That in which both a right carotid artery and a left 

 are present. This is the most usual fashion among the 

 various groups of Birds, including all the " aerial " forms 

 excepting Passerinx, Maerochires, and Picinse. 



2. That in which there is but a single carotid artery, 

 springing from both right and left trunk, but the branches 

 soon coalescing, to take a midway course, and again divid- 

 ing near the head. This form Nitzsch was only able to 

 find in the Bittern (Ardea stellaris). 



3. That in which the right carotid artery alone is 

 present, of which, according to our author's experience, the 

 Flamingo (Phomicopterus) was the sole example. 



4. That in which the left carotid artery alone exists, as 

 found in all other Birds examined by Nitzsch, and there- 

 fore as regards species and individuals much the most 

 common — since into this category come the countless 

 thousands of the Passerine Birds — a group which out- 

 numbers all the rest put together. 



Considering the enormous stride in advance made by L'Herminier, 

 it is very disappointing for the historian to have to record that the 

 next inquirer into the osteology of Birds achieved a disastrous failure 

 in his attempt to throw light on their arrangement by means of a 

 comparison of their sternum. This was Berthold, who devoted Berthold. 

 a long chapter of his Beilrage air Anatomie, published at Gbttingen 

 in 1831, to a consideration of the subject. So far as his introduc- 

 tory chapter went— the development of the sternum — he was, for 



2 Whether Nitzsch was cognizant of L'Herminier's views is in no 

 way apparent. The hitter's name seems not to be even mentioned by 

 him, but Nitzsch was in Paris in the summer of 1827, and it is almost 

 impossible that he should not have heard of L'Herminier's labours, 

 unless the relations between the followers of Cuvier, to whom Nitzsch 

 attached himself, and those of De Blainville, whose pupil L'Hermi- 

 nier was, wen- sueh as to forbid any communication between the rival 

 schools. Yetwe have L'Herminier's evidence that Cuvier gave him 

 every assistance. Nitzsch's silence, both on this occasion and after- 

 wards, l- verj curious; but he cannot be accused of plagiarism, for 

 the scheme given above is only an amplification of that foreshadowed 

 by him (as already mentioned) in 1820— a scheme whirl, seems to 

 have been equally unknown to L'Herminier, perhaps through linguistic 

 difficulty. 



