50 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS 
(Coracias) with the Bee-eaters (Merops), and had the sagacity to surmise 
that Menura was not a Gallinaceous Bird. The greatest benefit conferred 
by this memoir probably is that it stimulated the efforts, presently to be 
mentioned, of one of his pupils, and that it brought more distinctly into 
sight that other feature (page 48), originally discovered by Merrem, of which 
it now clearly became the duty of systematizers to take cognizance. 
Following the order of time we next have to recur to the labours of 
Nitzsch, who, in 1820, in a treatise on the Nasal Glands of Birds—a 
subject that had already attracted the atten ion of Jacobson (Now. Bull. 
Soc. Philomat. Paris, iii. pp. 267-269)—first put forth in Meckel’s Deutsches 
Archiv fiir die Physiologie (vi. pp. 251-269) a statement of his general 
views on ornithological classification which were based on a comparative 
examination of those bodies in various forms. It seems unnecessary here 
to occupy space by giving an abstract of his plan, which hardly includes 
any but European species, because it was subsequently elaborated with no 
inconsiderable modifications in a way that must presently be mentioned 
at greater length. But the scheme, crude as it was, possesses some 
interest. It is not only a key to much of his later work—to nearly all 
indeed that was published in his lifetime—but in it are founded several 
definite groups (for example, Passerine and Picarig) that subsequent 
experience has shewn to be more or less natural; and it further serves 
as additional evidence of the breadth of his views, and his trust in the 
teachings of anatomy; for it is clear that, if organs so apparently 
insignificant as these nasal glands were found worthy of being taken into 
account, and capable of forming a base of operations, in drawing up a 
system, it would almost follow that there can be no part of a Bird’s 
organization that by proper study would not help to supply some means 
of solving the great question of its affinities. This seems to be one of the 
most certain general truths in Zoology, and it is probably admitted in 
theory to be so by most zoologists, but their practice is opposed to it ; for, 
whatever group of animals be studied, it is found that one set or another 
of characters is the chief favourite of the authors consulted—each gener- 
ally taking a separate set, and that to the exclusion of all others, instead 
of effecting a combination of all the sets and taking the aggregate.? 
That Nitzsch took this extended view is abundantly proved by the 
valuable series of ornithotomical observations which he must have been 
for some time accumulating, and almost immediately afterwards began to 
contribute to the younger Naumann’s excellent Naturgeschichte der Vogel 
Deutschlands, already noticed. Beside a concise general treatise on the 
Organization of Birds to be found in the introduction to that work (i. pp. 
? This plan, having been repeated by Schépss in 1829 (op. cit. xii. p. 73), became 
known to Owen in 1835, who then drew to it the attention of Kirby (Seventh Bridge- 
water Treatise, ii. pp. 444, 445), and in the next year referred to it in his own article 
“Aves” (Todd’s Cyclop. Anat. i. p. 226), so that Englishmen need no excuse for not 
being aware of one of Nitzsch’s labours, though his more ecvene work of 1829, 
pr esently to be mentioned, was not cited by Owen. 
* A remarkable instance of this may be seen in the Syston Avium, promulgated 
in 1830 by Wagler (a man with great knowledge of Birds) in his Natiirliches System 
der Amphibien (pp. 77-128). He took the tongue as his chief guide, and found it 
indeed an vuruly member. 
