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ORNITHOLOGY 



Charadrii 



i 



Cecomorpha. Geranomorphee. 



Ak'<:tonmiorp!ir\\ 



l 



ClH 



nnrplKe. 



Amphtmorphse. 

 morpuas. | 



Pelargomorphge. 



Psittaco- Coccygo- JEgitho- Dysporo- 



morptia? inn] plec ^iiullui!. moiphse. 



The above scheme, in Prof. Huxley's opinion, nearly re- 

 presents the affinities of the various Carinate groups, — the 

 great difficulty being to determine the relations to the rest 

 of the Goccygomorphx, Psittacomorphx, and Mgithognathse, 

 which he indicated " only in the most doubtful and 

 hypothetic fashion." Almost simultaneously with this he 

 expounded more particularly before the Zoological Society, 

 in whose Proceedings (1868, pp. 294-319) his results 

 were soon after published, the groups of which he believed 

 the Alectoromorphm to be composed and the relations to 

 them of some outlying forms usually regarded as Gallina- 

 ceous, the Turnicidss and /'/, roclidse, as well as the singular 

 lb' ictzin (vol. xii. p. 28), for all three of which he had to 

 institute new groups — the last forming the sole representa- 

 tive of his lid, ■rminir/i/i;i: More than this, he entered 

 upon their Geographical Distribution, the facts of which 

 important subject are here, almost for the first time, since 

 the attempt of Blyth already mentioned, 1 brought to bear 

 practically on Classification, as has been previously hinted 

 (Birds, vol. iii. pp.736, 737); but, that subject having 

 been already treated at some length, there is no need to 

 enter upon it here. 



Nevertheless it is necessary to mention here Jhe intimate 

 connexion between Classification and Geographical Dis- 

 tribution as revealed by the palseontological researches 

 A. Milne- of Prof. Alpiionse Milne-Edwards, whose magnificent 

 Edwards* Oiseaux Fossiles de l,i France began to appear in 1807, 

 and was completed in 1871 — the more so, since the 

 exigencies of his undertaking compelled him to use 

 materials that had been almost wholly neglected by other 

 investigators. A large proportion of the fossil remains 

 the determination and description of which was his object 

 were what are very commonly called the " long bones," that 

 is to say, those of the limbs. The recognition of these, 

 minute and fragmentary as many were, and the referring 

 them to their proper place, rendered necessary an attentive 

 study of the comparative osteology and myology of Birds 

 in general, that of the "long bones," whose sole char- 

 acters were often a few muscular ridges or depressions, 

 being especially obligatory. Hence it became manifest 

 that a very respectable Classification can be found in 

 which characters drawn from these bones play a rather 

 important part. Limited by circumstances as is that 

 followed by M, Milne-Edwards, the details of his arrange- 

 ment do not require setting forth here. It is enough to 

 point out that we have in his work another proof of the 

 multiplicity of the factors which must be taken into 

 consideration by the systematist, and another proof of 

 the fallacy of trusting to one set of characters alone. 

 But this is not the only way in which the author has 

 rendered service to the advanced student of Orni- 



1 It is true that from the time of Buffon, though he scorned any 

 regular 01 i ' i Mral Distribution had been occasionally 



held to have something to do with systematic arrangement; hut the 

 way in which the two were related was never clearly put forth, though 

 people who could read between the lines might have guessed tliesecret 

 from Darwin's ./nun,"/ ,,/' /,'. searches, as well as from his introduction 

 to the Zoology of the "Beagle" I 



thology. The unlooked-for discovery in France of re- 

 mains which he has referred to forms now existing it is 

 true, but existing only in countries far removed from 

 Europe, forms such as Collocalia, Leptosomus, Psittacus, 

 Serpentarius, and Trogon, is perhaps even more suggestive 

 than the finding that France was once inhabited by forms 

 that are wholly extinct, of which, as has been already 

 mentioned (Birds, vol. iii. pp. 730, 731), in the older 

 formations there is abundance. Unfortunately none of 

 these, however, can be compared for singularity with 

 Archseopteryx or with some American fossil forms next to 

 be noticed, for their particular bearing on our knowledge 

 of Ornithology will be most conveniently treated here. 



In. November 1870 Prof. Marsh, by finding the im- Marsh. 

 perfect fossilized tibia of a Bird in the Middle Cretaceous 

 shale of Kansas, began a series of wonderful discoveries 

 which will ever be associated with his name, 2 and, making 

 us acquainted with a great number of forms long since 

 vanished from among the earth's inhabitants, has thrown 

 a comparatively broad beam of light upon the darkness 

 that, broken only by the solitary spark emitted on the 

 recognition of Arckieoptt ryx, had hitherto brooded over our 

 knowledge of the genealogy of Birds, and is even now for 

 the most part palpable. Subsequent visits to the same 

 part of North America, often performed under circum- 

 stances of discomfort and occasionally of danger, brought 

 to this intrepid and energetic explorer the reward he had 

 so fully earned. Brief notices of his spoils appeared from 

 time to time in various volumes of the American Journal 

 of Science and Arts (Silliman's), but it is unnecessary here 

 to refer to more than a few of them. In that Journal for 

 May 1872 (ser. 3, iii. p. 360) the remains of a largo 

 swimming Bird (nearly 6 feet in length, as afterwards 

 appeared) having some affinity, it .was thought, to the 

 Colymbidse were described under the name of Hesperornis 

 regalis, and a few months later (iv. p. 344) a second fossil 

 Bird from the same locality was indicated as Ichthyornis 

 dispar — from the Fish-like, biconcave form of its vertebrae. 

 Further examination of the enormous collections gathered 

 by the author, and preserved in the Museum of Yale 

 College at New Haven in Connecticut, shewed him that this 

 last Bird, and another to which he gave the name of 

 Apatornis, had possessed well-developed teeth implanted 

 in sockets in both jaws, and induced him to establish (v. 

 pp. 161, 102) for their reception a " Subclass " Odontor- 

 nithes and an Order IchthyornitAes. Two years more and 

 the originally found Hesperornis was discovered also to 

 have teeth, but these were inserted in a groove. It was 

 accordingly regarded as the type of a distinct Order 

 Odontolcx (x. pp. 403-408), to which were assigned as 

 other characters vertebrae of a saddle-shape and not 

 biconcave, a keel less sternum, and wings consisting only 

 of the humerus. In 1880 Prof. Marsh brought out a grand 

 volume, Odoniornithes, being a monograph of the extinct 

 toothed Birds of North America. Herein remains, attri- 

 buted to no fewer than a score of species, which were 

 referred to eight different genera, are fully described and 

 sufficiently illustrated, and, instead of the ordinal name 

 Ichthyornithes previously used, that of Odontotormx was 

 proposed. In the author's concluding summary he remarks 

 on the fact that, while the Odontolcx, as exhibited in 

 Hesperornis, had teeth inserted in a continuous groove — a 

 low and generalized character as shewn by Reptiles, they 

 had, however, the strongly differentiated saddle-shaped 

 vertebrae such as all modern Birds possess. On the other 

 hand the Odontotormx, as exemplified in Ichthyornis, having 

 the primitive biconcave vertebrae, yet possessed the highly 



- It will of course be needless to remind the general zoologist of 

 Prof. Marsh's no less wonderful discoveries of wholly unlooked-for 

 types of Reptiles and Mammals. 



