26 



ORNITHOLOGY 



relationship to Tringa (see Sandpiper), a point of order which 

 other systematise were long in admitting. On the whole Brandt's 

 labours were of no small service in asserting the principle that con- 

 sideration must be paid to osteology ; for his position was such as 

 to gain more attention to his views than some of his less favourably 

 placed brethren had succeeded in doing. 

 Keyser- In the same year (1S39) another slight advance was made in the 

 ling and classification of the true Passerines. Ketserling and Blasius 

 Blasius. briefly pointed out in the Archivfiir Naturgeschichte (v. pp. 332-334) 

 that, while all the other Birds provided with perfect song-muscles 

 had the "planta" or hind part of the "tarsus" covered with two 

 long and undivided horny plates, the Larks (vol. xiv. p. 316) had 

 this part divided by many transverse sutures, so as to be scutellated 

 behind as well as in front ; just as is the case in many of the 

 Passerines which have not the singing-apparatus, and also in the 

 Hoopoe (vol. xii. p. 154). The importance of this singular but 

 superficial departure from the normal structure has been so need- 

 lessly exaggerated as a character that at the present time its value 

 is apt to be unduly depreciated. In so large and so homogeneous 

 a group as that of the true Passerines, a constant character of this 

 kind is not to be despised as a practical mode of separating the 

 Birds which possess it ; and, more than this, it would appear that 

 the discovery thus announced was the immediate means of leading 

 to a series of investigations of a much more important and lasting 

 nature — those of Johannes Miiller to be presently mentioned. 



Again wo must recur to that indefatigable and most 

 Nitzsch. original investigator Nitzsch, who, having never inter- 

 mitted his study of the particular subject of his first con- 

 tribution to science, long ago noticed, in 1833 brought 

 out at Halle, where he was Professor of Zoology, an essay 

 with the title Pterylographise Avium Pars prior. It seems 

 that this was issued as much with the object of inviting 

 assistance from others in view of future labours, since the 

 materials at his disposal were comparatively scanty, as 

 with that of making known the results to which his 

 researches had already led him. Indeed he only com- 

 municated copies of this essay to a few friends, and 

 examples of it are comparatively scarce. Moreover, he 

 stated subsequently that he thereby hoped to excite other 

 naturalists to share with him the investigations he was 

 making on a subject which had hitherto escaped notice or 

 had been wholly neglected, since he considered that he 

 had proved the disposition of the feathered tracts in the 

 plumage of Birds to be the means of furnishing characters 

 for the discrimination of the various natural groups as 

 significant and important as they were new and un- 

 expected. 1 There was no need for us here to quote this 

 essay in its chronological place, since it dealt only with 

 the generalities of the subject, and did not enter upon any 

 systematic details. These the author reserved for a second 

 treatise which he was destined never to complete. He 

 kept on diligently collecting materials, and as he did so 



1 It is still a prevalent belief among nearly all persons but well- 

 informed ornithologists, that feathers grow almost uniformly over the 

 whole surface of a Bird's body ; some indeed are longer ami some are 

 shorter, but that is about all the difference perceptible to most people. 

 It is the easiest thing for anybody to satisfy himself that this, except 

 in a few cases, is altogether an erroneous supposition. In all but a 

 small number of forms the leathers are produced in very definite clumps 

 or tracts, called by Nitzsch ^en/te(7rTep<i>', penna, vKr), syliia), a rather 

 fanciful term it is true, but one to which no objection can be taken. 

 Between these pterylse are spaces bare of feathers, which he named 

 a/, /,-, ia. Before Nitzsch's time the only men who seem to have noticed 

 this fact were the great John Hunter and the accurate Macartney. But 

 the observations of the former on the subject were not given to the world 

 until 1836, when Sir R. Owen introduced them into his Catalogue of 



the Museum of the College of Surg in London (vol. iii. pt. n. p. 



311), and therein is no indication of the fact having a taxonomical 

 bearing. The same may be said of Ma. artney's remarks, which, though 

 subsequent in point of time, were published earlier, namely, in 1819 

 (Rees's Cyclopsedia, xiv., art. "Feathers"). Ignorance of this simple 

 lit ins led astray many celebrated painters, among them Sir Edwin 

 Landseer, whose pictures of Birds nearly always shew an unnatural 

 representation of the plumage that at once betrays itself to the trained 

 eye, though of course it is not perceived by spectators generally, who 

 regard only the correctness of attitude and force of expression, which 

 in that artist's work commonly leave little to bo desired. Every 

 draughtsman of Birds to be successful should study the plan on which 

 their feathers are disposed. 



was constrained to modify some of the statements he had 

 published. He consequently fell into a state of doubt, 

 and before he could make up his mind on some questions 

 which he deemed important he was overtaken by death. 2 

 Then his papers were handed over to his friend and suc- 

 cessor Prof. Burmeister, now and for many years past of Bur- 

 Buenos Aires, who, with much skill elaborated from meister. 

 them the excellent work known as Nitzsch's Pterylo- 

 graphie, which was published at Halle in 1840. There 

 can be no doubt that Prof. Burmeister (fortunately yet 

 spared to us) discharged his editorial duty with the 

 most conscientious scrupulosity ; but, from what has been 

 just said, it is certain that there were important points 

 on which Nitzsch was as yet undecided — some of 

 them perhaps of which no trace appeared in his manu- 

 scripts, and therefore as in every case of works posthum- 

 ously published, unless (as rarely happens) they have 

 received their author's "imprimatur," they cannot be 

 implicitly trusted as the expression of his final views. It 

 would consequently be unsafe to ascribe positively all that 

 appears in this volume to the result of Nitzsch's mature 

 consideration. Moreover, as Prof. Burmeister states in 

 his preface, Nitzsch by no means regarded the natural 

 sequence of groups as the highest problem of the system- 

 atist, but rather their correct limitation. Again the 

 arrangement followed in the Pterylographie was of course 

 based on pterylographical considerations, and we have its 

 author's own word for it that he was persuaded that the 

 limitation of natural groups could only be attained by the 

 most assiduous research into the species of which they are 

 composed from every point of view. The combination 

 of these three facts will of itself explain some defects, or 

 even retrogressions, observable in Nitzsch's later systematic 

 work when compared with that which he had formerly 

 done. On the other hand some manifest improvements 

 are introduced, and the abundance of details into which 

 he enters in his Pterylographie render it far more instruc- 

 tive and valuable than the older performance. As an 

 abstract of that has already been given, it may be 

 sufficient here to point out the chief changes made in his 

 newer arrangement. To begin with, the three great 

 sections of Aerial, Terrestrial, and Aquatic Birds are 

 abolished. The "Accipitres " are divided into two groups, 

 Diurnal and Nocturnal ; but the first of these divisions is 

 separated into three sections: — (1) the Vultures of the 

 New World, (2) those of the Old World, and (3) the 

 genus Falco of Linnseus. The "Passerines," that is to 

 say, the true Passeres, are split into eight Families, not 

 wholly with judgment; 3 but of their taxonomy more is 

 to be said presently. Then a new Order " Pieariee " is 

 instituted for the reception of the Macrochires, Cuculinse, 

 Picinee, Psiitacinse, and Amphibolx of his old arrangement, 

 to which are added three 4 others — Cnjiritittt/ginx, Todidse, 

 and Lipoglossx — the last consisting of the genera Buceros, 

 Upupa, and Alcedo. The association of Alcedo with the 



2 Though not relating exactly to our present theme, it would be 

 improper to dismiss Nitzsch's name without reference to his extra- 

 ordinary labours in investigating the insect and other external parasites 

 of Birds, a subject which as regards British species was subsequently 

 elaborated by Dkxny in Ids Monographia Anoplv/rorum Britannim 

 (1842) and in his list of the specimens of British Anoplura in the col- 

 lection of the British Museum. 



3 A short essay by Nitzsch on the general structure of the Passerines, 

 written, it is said, in 1836, was published in 1862 (Zeitsckr. Ges. 

 Naturwisscnschuft ', xix. pp. 389-408). It is probably to this essay 

 that Prof. Burmeister refers in the Pl,r;ih>iiraphie (p. 102, note ; 

 English translation, p. 72, note) as forming the basis of the article 



"Passerinffl" which I ontributed to Ersch and Gruber's EncyHo- 



padie (sect. iii. bd. xiii. pp. 139-144), and published before the 

 Pterylographie. 



4 By the numbers prefixed it would look as if there should be four 

 new members of this Order ; but that seems to be due rather to a slip 

 of the pen or to a printer's error. 



