ORNITHOLOGY 



39 



could not, by trusting only to external characters, do better 

 than this, the most convincing proof is afforded of the 

 inability of external characters alone to produce anything 

 save ataxy. The principal merits it possesses are con- 

 fined to the minor arrangement of some of the Oscines; 

 but even here many of the alliances, such, for instance, 

 as that of Pitta with the true Thrushes, are indefensible 

 on any rational grounds, and some, as that of Accentor 

 with the Weaver-birds and Whydah-birds, verge upon the 

 ridiculous, while on the other hand the interpolation of 

 the American Fly-catching Warblers, Afniotiltidss, between 

 the normal Warblers of the Old World and the Thrushes is 

 as bad — especially when the genus Mniotilta is placed, not- 

 withstanding its different wing-formula, with the Tree- 

 creepers, Certhihhc. The whole work unfortunately betrays 

 throughout an utter want of the sense of proportion. In 

 many of the large groups the effect of very slight differ- 

 ences is to keep the forms exhibiting them widely apart, 

 while in most of the smaller groups differences of far 

 greater kind are overlooked, so that the forms which 

 present them are linked together in more or less close 

 union. Thus, regarding only external characters, great 

 as is the structural distinction between the Gannets, 

 Cormorants, Frigate-birds, and Pelicans, it is not held to 

 remove them from the limits of a single Family ; and yet 

 the Thrushes and the Chats, whose distinctions are barely 

 sensible, are placed in separate Families, as are also the 

 Chats and the Nightingales, wherein no structural distinc- 

 tions at all can be traced. Again, even in one and the 

 same group the equalization of characters indicative of 

 Families is wholly neglected. Thus among the Pigeons 

 the genera Didus and Didiuu-ulus, which differ, so far as 

 we know it, in every external character of their structure, 

 are placed in one Family, and yet on the slightest pre- 

 text the genus Goura, which in all respects so intimately 

 resembles ordinary Pigeons, is set apart as the represen- 

 tative of a distinct Family. The only use of dwelling 

 upon these imperfections here is the hope that thereby 

 students of Ornithology may be induced to abandon the 

 belief in the efficacy of external characters as a sole means 

 of classification, and, by seeing how unmanageable they 

 become unless checked by internal characters, be per- 

 suaded of the futility of any attempt to form an arrange- 

 ment without that solid foundation which can only be 

 obtained by a knowledge of anatomy. Where Sundevall 

 failed no one else is likely to succeed; for he was a man 

 gifted with intelligence of a rare order, a man of cultiva- 

 tion and learning, one who had devoted his whole life to 

 science, who had travelled much, studied much and 

 reflected much, a man whose acquaintance with the 

 literature of his subject probably exceeded that of any of 

 his contemporaries, and a man whose linguistic attainments 

 rendered him the envy of his many friends. Yet what 

 should have been the crowning work of his long life is one 

 that all who respected him, and that comprehends all who 

 knew him, must regret. 

 Garrod Of the very opposite kind was the work of the two men 

 al " 1 next to be mentioned — Gareod and Forbes — both cut 

 01 Jes ' short in a career of promise 1 that among students of 

 Ornithology has rarely been equalled and perhaps never 

 surpassed. The present writer finds it difficult to treat of 

 the labours of two pupils and friends from whose assistance 

 he had originally hoped to profit in the preparation of this 

 very article, the more so that, while fully recognizing the 

 brilliant nature of some of their researches, he is compelled 

 very frequently to dissent from the conclusions at which 



1 Alfred Henry Garroil, Prosector to the Zoological Society of 

 London, died of consumption in 1879, aged thirty-three. His successor 

 in that office, William Alexander Forties, fell a victim to the deadly 

 climate of the Niger in 1883, and in his twenty-eighth year. 



they arrived, deeming them to have often been of a kind 

 that, had their authors survived to a maturer age, they 

 would have greatly modified. Still he well knows that 

 learners are mostly «i er than their teachers; and, making 

 due allowance for the haste with which, from the' exigencie i 

 of the post they successively held, their investigations had 

 usually to be published, he believes that much of the 

 highest value underlies even the crudest conjectures con- 

 tained in their several contributions to Ornithology. 

 Putting aside the monographical papers by which each of 

 them followed the excellent example set by their predecessor 

 in the office they filled — Dr Mukie 2 — and beginning with 

 Garrod's, 3 those having a more general scope, all published 

 in the Zoological Society's Proceedings, may be briefly con- 

 sidered. Starting from the level reached by Prof. Huxley, 

 the first attempt made by the younger investigator was in 

 1873, "On the value in Classification of a Peculiarity in 

 the auterior margin of the Nasal Bones in certain Birds." 

 Herein he strove to prove that Birds ought to be divided 

 into two Subclasses — one, called " Holorhinal," in which a, 

 straight line drawn transversely across the hindmost points 

 of the external narial apertures passes in front of the 

 posterior ends of the nasal processes of the prsemaxillse, 

 and the other, called " Schizorhinal," in which such a line 

 passes behind those processes. If this be used as a 

 criterion, the validity of Prof. Huxley's group Schi:o</ntith;e 

 is shaken ; but there is no need to enlarge upon the pro- 

 posal, for it was virtually abandoned by its author within 

 little more than a twelvemonth. The next subject in con- 

 nexion with Systematic Ornithology to which Garrod 

 applied himself was an investigation of the Carotid 

 Arteries, and here, in the same year, he made a consider- 

 able advance upon the labours of Nitzsch, as might well 

 be expected, for the opportunities of the latter were very 

 limited, and he was only able, as we have seen (page 22), 

 to adduce four types of structure in them, while Garrod, 

 with the superior advantages of his situation, raised the 

 number to six. Nevertheless he remarks that their " dis- 

 position has not much significance among Birds, there 

 being many Families in which, whilst the majority of the 

 species have two, some have only one carotid." The 

 exceptional cases cited by him are quite sufficient to prove 

 that the condition of this artery has nearly no value from 

 the point of view of general classification. If relied upon 

 it would split up the Families Bucerotidx and Gypselidx, 

 which no sane person would doubt to be homogeneous and 

 natural. The femoral vessels formed another subject of 

 investigation, and were found to exhibit as much 

 exceptional conformation as those of the neck — for instance 

 in C< ntropus phananus, one of the Birds known as Coucals, 

 the femoral artery accompanies the femoral vein, though 

 it does not do so in another species of the genus, C. 

 rufipennis, nor in any other of the C'uculidx (to which 

 Family the genus Centropus has been always assigned) 

 examined by Garrod. Nor are the results of the very 

 great labour which he bestowed upon the muscular con- 

 formation of the thigh in Birds any more conclusive when 

 they come to be impartially and carefully considered. 

 Myology was with him always a favourite study, and he 



- Dr Mnrie's chief papers having a divert, bearing em Systematic Murie. 

 Ornithology are: — in tin- X<>,>l<>L'ie:d Soeirty's Tr>rnxiictin/:$ i;vii. p. -Hif»), 

 " On the Dermal and Visceral Structures of the Kagu, Sun-Bittern, and 

 Boatbill"; in the same Society's Proceedings — (1871, p. 647) "Addi- 

 tional Notice concerning the Powder-Downs of SMnocheius jvbatus," 

 (1872, p. CG4) "On the Skeleton of Todus with remarks as to its 

 Allies," (1S79, p. 552) "On the Skeleton and Lineage of Fregilupus 

 Darius" ; in The Ibis— (1872, p.262) "On the genus Colius," (1872, 

 p. 383) "Motmots and their affinities," (1873, p. 181) "Relationships 

 of the Vpupidse. " 



3 Garrod's Scientific Papers have 1 n collected and published in a 



memorial volume, edited by Forbes. There is therefore no need to give 

 a list of them here. Forties's papers are to lie edited by Prof. F. J. Dell. 



