$6 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS 
part of the subject later, there is here no need to say more of them. In 
the following year another set of hints—of a kind so different that 
probably no one then living would have thought it possible that they 
should ever be brought in correlation with those of Nitzsch—are con- 
tained in a memoir on Fishes contributed to the tenth volume of the 
Annales du Muséum @histoire naturelle of Paris by Etienne Geoffroy St.- 
Hilaire in 1807.1 Here we have it stated as a general truth (p. 100) 
that young birds have the sternum formed of five separate pieces—one in 
the middle, being its keel, and two “annexes” on each side to which the 
ribs are articulated—all, however, finally uniting to form the single 
“breast-bone.” Further on (pp. 101, 102) we find observations as to the 
number of ribs which are attached to each of the “annexes”—there being 
sometimes more of them articulated to the anterior than to the posterior, 
and in certain forms no ribs belonging to ‘one, all being applied to the 
other. Moreover, the author goes on to remark that in adult birds 
trace of the origin of the sternum from five centres of ossification is 
always more or less indicated by sutures, and that, though these sutures 
had been generally regarded as ridges for the attachment of the sternal 
muscles, they indeed mark the extreme points of the five primary bony 
pieces of the sternum. 
In 1810 appeared at Heidelberg the first volume of Tiedemann’s 
carefully-wrought Anatomie und Naturgeschichte der Végel—which shews 
a remarkable advance upon the work which Cuvier did in 1805, and in 
some respects is superior to his later production of 1817. It is, however, 
only noticed here on account of the numerous references made to it by 
succeeding writers, for neither in this nor in the author’s second volume 
(not published until 1814) did he propound any systematic arrangement 
of the Class. More germane to our present subject are the Osteographische 
Beitriige zur Naturgeschichte der Vogel of Nitzsch, printed at Leipzig in 
1811—a miscellaneous set of detached essays on some peculiarities of the 
skeleton or portions of the skeleton of certain Birds—one of the most 
remarkable of which is that on the component parts of the foot (pp. 
101-105) pointing out the aberration from the ordinary structure 
exhibited by Caprimulgus (NiauHTsaRr) and Cypselus (SwIrt)—an aberration 
which, if rightly understood, would have conveyed a warning to these orni- 
thological systematists who put their trust in Birds’ toes for characters on 
which to erect a classification, that there was in them much more of 
importance, hidden beneath the integument, than had hitherto been 
suspected ; but the warning was of little avail, if any, till many years 
had elapsed. However, Nitzsch had not as yet seen his way to proposing 
any methodical arrangement of the various groups of Birds, and it was 
not until some eighteen months later that a scheme of classification in 
the main anatomical was attempted. 
This scheme was the work of Blasius Merrem, who, in a communica- 
tion to the Academy of Sciences of Berlin on the 10th December 1812, 
and published in its Abhandlungen for the following year (pp. 237-259), 
ie In the Philosophie Anatomique (i. pp. 69-101, and especially pp. 135, 136), 
which appeared in 1818, Geoffroy St.-Hilaire explained the views he had adopted at 
greater length, 
