ORNITHOLOGY 



other two is no doubt a misplacement, but the alliance of 

 Hum-ox to Upupa, already suggested by Gould and Blyth 

 in 1838 1 (Mag. Nat. History, sec. 2, ii. pp. 422 and 589), 

 though apparently unnatural, lias been corroborated by 

 many later systematizes ; and taken as a whole the estab- 

 lishment of the Piearise was certainly a commendable pro- 

 ceeding. For the rest there is only one considerable 

 change, and that forms the greatest blot on the whole 

 scheme. Instead of recognizing, as before, a Subclass in 

 the liatitx of Merrem, Nitzsch now reduced them to the 

 rank of an Order under the name " Platysternx," placing 

 them between the " Gallinaceee" and " Grallse," though 

 admitting that in their pterylosis they differ from all other 

 Birds, in ways that lie is at great pains to describe, in each 

 of the four genera examined by him — Stiiithio, Rhea, 

 Dromseus, and < 'asuarms? It is significant that notwith- 

 standing this he did not figure the pterylosis of any one 

 of them, and the thought suggests itself that, though his 

 editor assures us he had convinced himself that the group 

 must be here shoved in (eingeschoben is the word used), 

 the intrusion is rather due to the necessity w : hich Nitzsch, 

 in common with most men of his time (the Quinarians 

 excepted), felt for deploying the whole series of Birds into 

 line, in which case the proceeding may be defensible on 

 the score of convenience. The extraordinary merits of 

 this book, and the admirable fidelity to his principles 

 which Prof. Burmeister shewed in the difficult task of 

 editing it, were unfortunately overlooked for many years, 

 and perhaps are not sufficiently recognized now. liven in 

 Germany, the author's own country, there were few to 

 notice seriously what is certainly one of the most remark- 

 able works ever published on the science, much less to 

 pursue the investigations that had been so laboriously 

 begun. 3 Andreas Wagner, in his report on the progress 

 of Ornithology, as might be expected from such a man as 

 he was, placed the Pterylographie at the summit of those 

 publications the appearance of which he had to record for the 

 years 1839 and 1840, stating that for " Systematik " it was 

 of the greatest importance.* On the other hand Oken ( Isis, 

 1842, pp. 391-394), though giving a summary of Nitzsch's 

 results and classification, was more sparing of his praise, and 

 prefaced his remarks by asserting that he could not refrain 

 from laughter when he looked at the plates in Nitzsch's 

 work, since they reminded him of the plucked fowls 

 hanging in a poulterer's shop — it might as well be urged 

 as an objection to the plates in many an anatomical book 

 that they called to mind a butcher's — and goes on to say 

 that, as the author always had the luck to engage in 

 researches of which nobody thought, so had he the lurk 

 to print them where nobody sou-lit them. In Sweden 



1 This association is one of the most remarkable in the whole series 

 of Blyth's remarkable papers on classification in the volume cited above. 

 He states that Gould suspected the alliance of these two forms "from 

 external structure and habits alone ;" otherwise one might suppose that 

 he had obtained an intimation to that effect on one of his Continental 

 journeys. Blyth "arrived at the same conclusion, however, by a different 

 train of investigation,'' and this is beyond doubt. 



- He does not mention Apteryx, at that time so little known on the 

 ( tontinent. 



1 Some excuse is to be made for this neglect. Nitzsch had of course 

 exhausted all the forms of Birds commonly to be obtained, and speci- 

 mens of the less common forms were too valuable from the curator's or 

 collector's point of view to be subjected to a treatment that might end 

 in their destruction. Yet it is said, on good authority, that Nitzsch 

 had the patience so to manipulate the skins of many rare species that 

 he was able to ascertain the characters of theirpterylosis bythe inspec- 

 tion of their inside only, without in any way damaging them for the 

 ordinary purpose of a museum. Nor is this surprising when we con- 

 eider the marvellous skill of Continental and especially German taxi- 

 dermists, many of whom have elevated their profession to a height of 

 art inconceivable to most Englishmen, who are only acquainted with 

 the miserable mockery of Nature which is the most sublime result of all 

 but a few " bird-stuffers." 



4 Archivfur Naturgeschichte, vii. 2, pp. 60, 61. 



Sundevall, without accepting Nitzsch's views, accorded 

 them a far more appreciative greeting in his annual reports 

 for 1840-42 (i. pp. 152-160); but of course in England 

 and France 5 nothing was known of them beyond the 

 scantiest notice, generally taken at second hand, in two or 

 three publications. Thanks to Mr Sclater, tin- Kay Society 

 was induced to publish, in 1867, an excellent translation 

 by Mr Dallas of Nitzsch's Pterylography, and thereby, 

 however tardily, justice was at length rendered by British 

 ornithologists to one of their greatest foreign brethren. 6 



The treatise of Kessler on the osteology of Birds'feet, published 

 in the Bull I in of the Moscow Society of Naturalists for Is 11, next 

 claims a few words, though its scope is rather to shew differences 

 than affinities ; but treatment of that kind is undoubtedly useful 

 at tines in indicating that alliances generally admitted are 

 unnatural ; and this is the case here, for, following Cuvier's 

 method, the author's researches prove the artificial character of 

 smile of its associations. While furnishing— almost unconsciously, 

 however —additional evidence for overthrowing that classification, 

 there is, nevertheless, no attempt made to construct a better one ; 

 and the elaborate tables of dimensions, both absolute and pro- 

 portional, suggestive as is the whole tendency of the author's 

 observations, seem not to lead to any very practical result, though 

 the systematist's need to look beneath the integument, even in 

 parts that are so comparatively little hidden as Birds' feet, is once 

 more made beyond all question apparent. 



It has already been mentioned that MACGILLIVRAY con- 

 tributed to Audubon's Ornithological Biography a series of 

 descriptions of some parts of the anatomy of American 

 lards, from subjects supplied to him by that enthusiastic 

 naturalist, whose zeal and prescience, it may be called, in 

 this respect merits all praise. Thus he (prompted very 

 likely by Macgillivray) wrote :—" I believe the time to be 

 approaching when much of the results obtained from the 

 inspection of the exterior alone will be laid aside ; when 

 museums filled with stuffed skins will be considered 

 insufficient to afford a knowledge of birds ; and when the 

 student will go forth, not only to observe the habits and 

 haunts of animals, but to preserve specimens of them to 

 be carefully dissected " (Ornith. Biography, iv., Introduc- 

 tion, p. xxiv). As has been stated, the first of this series 

 of anatomical descriptions appeared in the fourth volume 

 of his work, published in 1838, but they were continued 

 until its completion with the fifth volume in the following 

 year, and the whole was incorporated into what may be 

 termed its second edition, The Birds of America, which 

 appeared between 1840 and 1844 (see p. 1 1). Among 

 the many species whose anatomy Macgillivray thus partly 

 described from autopsy were at ieast half a dozen 7 of those 

 now referred to the Family Tyrannidss, (see King-bird, 

 vol. xiv. p. 80), but then included, with many others, ac- 

 cording to the irrational, vague, and rudimentary notions of 

 classification of the time, in what was termed the Family 

 " Muscicapinx." In all these species he found the vocal 

 organs to differ essentially in structure from those of other 

 Birds of the Old World, which we now call Passerine, or, 

 to be still more precise, Oscinian. But by him these last 

 were most arbitrarily severed, dissociated from their allies, 

 and wrongly combined with other forms by no means 

 nearly related to them (Brit. Birds, i. pp. 17, 18) which 



Macgil- 



livray 

 and 

 Audu- 

 bon. 



5 In 1836 JACQUEMiNcommunicated to theFrench Academy (Comptes 

 Ri \ndus, ii. pp. 374, 375, and 472) some observations on the order in 

 which feathers are disposed on the body of Birds ; but, however general 

 may have been the scope of his investigations, the portion of them 

 published refers only to the Crow, and there is no mention made of 

 Nitzsch's former work. 



6 The Ray Society had the good fortune to obtain the ten original 

 copper-plates, all but one drawn by the author himself, wherewith the 

 work was illustrated. It is only to be regretted that the Society did 

 not also stick to the quarto size in which it appeared, for by issuing 

 their English version in folio they needlessly put an impediment in the 

 way of its common and convenient use. 



7 These are, according to modern nomenclature, Tyrannus caroli- 

 nensis and (as before mentioned) T. verticalis, Myiarchus crinUus, 

 Sayornis fuscus, Contopus virens, and Empidonax acadicus. 



