ORNITHOLOGY 



37 



specialized feature of teeth in distinct sockets. Hespt romis 

 too, with its keelless sternum, had aborted wings but strong 

 I and feet adapted for swimming, while Icktliyomis had 

 led sternum and powerful wings, but diminutive legs 

 and feet. These and other characters separate the two 

 forms so widely as quite to justify the establishment of as 

 many Orders for their reception, and the opposite nature 

 of the evidence they afford illustrates cue fundamental 

 principle of evolution, namely, that an animal may attain 

 to great development of one set of characters and at the 

 same time retain other features of a low ancestral type. 

 Prof. Marsh states that he had fully satisfied himself that 

 Archaeopteryx belonged to the Odontornitkes, which he 

 thought it advisable for the present to regard as a Subclass, 

 separated into three Orders — Odoniolcas, Odontotomy and 

 Saururee — all well marked, but evidently not of ecpial rank, 

 the last being clearly much more widely distinguished from 

 the first two than they are from one another. But that 

 these three oldest-known forms of Birds should differ so 

 greatly from each other unmistakably points to a great 

 antiquity for the Class. All are true Birds; but the 

 Reptilian characters they possess converge towards a more 

 generalized type. He then proceeds to treat of the 

 characters which may be expected to have occurred in 

 their common ancestor, whose remains may yet lie hoped 

 for from the Palaeozoic rocks if not from the Permian beds 

 that in North America are so rich in the fossils of a 

 terrestrial fauna. Birds, he believes, branched off by a 

 single stem, which gradually lost its Reptilian as it assumed 

 the Ornithic type ; and in the existing Batitm we have 

 the survivors of this direct line. The lineal descendants 

 of this primal stock doubtless at an early time attained 

 feathers and warm blood, but, in his opinion, never 

 acquired the power of flight, which probably originated 

 among the small arboreal forms of Reptilian Birds. In 

 them even rudimentary feathers on the fore-limbs would 

 be an advantage, as they would tend to lengthen a leap 

 from branch to branch, or break the force of a fall in leap- 

 ing to the ground. As the feathers increased, the body 

 would become warmer and the blood more active. With 

 still more feathers would come increased power of flight as 

 we see in the young Birds of to-day. A greater activity 

 would result in a more perfect circulation. A true Bird 

 would doubtless require warm blood, but would not 

 necessarily be hot-blooded, like the Birds now living. 

 Whether Archxopteryx was on the true Carinate line can- 

 no! as yet be determined, and this is also true of Ichthy- 

 ornis; but the biconcave vertebras of the latter suggesl its 

 being an early offshoot, while it is probable that 

 Hesperornis came off from the main " Struthious " stem 

 and has left no descendants. 



Bold as are the speculations above summarized, there 

 seems no reason to doubt the probability of their turning 

 out to be, if not the exact truth, yet something very 

 like it. 



From this bright vision of the poetic past — a glimpse, 

 some may call it, into the land of dreams — we must 

 relapse into a sober contemplation of the prosaic present — 

 a subject quite as difficult to understand. The former 

 Sunde- efforts at classification made by Sundevall have already 

 vail. several times been mentioned, and a return to their con- 

 sideration was promised. In 1872 and 1873 he brought 

 out at Stockholm a Methodi Naturalis Avium Disponend- 

 arum Tentamen, two portions of which (those relating to 

 the Diurnal Birds-of-Prey and the " dchlomorphx," or 

 forms related to the Thrushes) he found himself under tin 

 necessity of revising and modifying in the course of 1874, 

 in as many communications to the Swedish Academy of 

 Sciences (A'. V.-Ah. Forhandlingar, 1*7-1, No. 2, pp. 

 21-30 ; No. 3, pp. 27-30). This '/'< ntarra n, containing the 



latest complete method of classifying Birds in general, ha 

 naturally received much attention, the more so perhaps, 

 since, with its appendices, il was nearly the last labour of its 



respected author, whose industrious life came to an end in 

 the course nf the following year. From what has before 

 been said of his works it may have been gathered that, while 

 1 1 ii illy basing his systematic arrangement of the groups 

 of Birds on their external features, he had hitherto striven 

 to make his schemes harmonize if possible with the dictates 

 of internal structure as evinced by the science of anatomy-, 

 though he uniformly and persistently protested against the 

 inside being better than the outside. In thus acting he 

 proved himself a true follower of his great countryman 

 Linnaeus ; but, without disparagement of his efforts in 

 this respect, it must be said that when internal and exter- 

 nal characters appeared to be in conflict he gave, perhaps 

 with unconscious bias, a preference to the latter, fur he 

 belonged to a school of zoologists whose natural instinct 

 was to believe that such a conflict always existed. Heme 

 his efforts, praiseworthy as they were from several points 

 of view, and particularly so in regard to some details, failed 

 to satisfy the philosophic taxonomer when generalizations 

 and deeper principles were concerned, and in his pi i 

 in respect of certain technicalities of classification he was, 

 in the eyes of the orthodox, a transgressor. Thus instead 

 of contenting himself with terms that had met with pretty 

 general approval, such as Class, Subclass, Order, Sub- 

 order, Family, Subfamily, and so on, he introduced into 

 his final scheme other designations, "Agmen," " Obhors," 

 " Phalanx," and the like, which to the ordinary student of 

 Ornithology convey an indefinite meaning, if anj- meaning 

 at all. He also carried to a very extreme limit his views 

 of nomenclature, which were certainly not in accordance 

 with those held by most zoologists, though this is a matti i 

 so trifling as to need no details in illustration. It is by 

 no means easy to set forth briefly, and at the same time 

 intelligibly, to any but experts, the final scheme of Sunde- 

 vall, owing to the numl ler of new names introduced 1 >y him, 

 nevertheless the attempt must be made ; but it must be 

 understood that in the following paradigm, in which his 

 later modifications are incorporated, only the most remark- 

 able or best-known forms are cited as examples of his 

 several groups, for to give the whole of them would, if any 

 explanations were added, occupy far more space than the 

 occasion seems to justify, and without such explanations 

 the list would be of use only to experts, who would rather 

 consult the original work. 



First, Sundevall would still make two grand divisions 

 (" Agmina ") of Birds, even as had been done nearly forty 

 years before; but, having found that the names, A ttrices and 

 Pra < oces, he had formerly used were not always applicable, 

 or the groups thereby indicated naturally disposed, he at 

 first distinguished them as Psilopxdes and PtUopxdes. 

 Then, seeing that the great similarity of these two words 

 would produce confusion both in speaking and writing, he 

 changed them (p. 158) into the equivalent Gymnopsedes 

 and Dctsypxdes, according as the young were hatched 

 naked or clothed. The Gymnopxdes are divided into two 

 " Orders" — Osdnes and Volucres — the former intended to 

 be identical with the group of the same name established 

 by older authors, and, in accordance with the observations 

 of Keyserling and Blasius already mentioned, divided into 

 two "Series" — Laminiplantares, having the hinder part 

 of the "tarsus" covered with two homy plates, and Scuti Ui- 

 plarvtares, in which the same part is scutellated. These 

 Laminiplantares are composed of six Cohorts as follows : — 



i lohore t. ' 'ichlomorphse. 

 Phalanx 1. Ocreatm. — 7 Families: the Nightingales standing 

 first, and therefore at the head of all Birds, with the Redbreast, 

 K I tart, and the American Blue-bird; after them the Chats, 



