82 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS 
In the spring of the year 1867 the late Prof. Huxley, to. the delight 
of an appreciative audience, delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons 
of England a course of lectures on Birds, and it is much to be regretted 
that his many engagements hindered him from publishing in its entirety 
his elucidation of the anatomy of the Class, and the results which he 
drew from his investigations of it ; for never assuredly had the subject 
been attacked with greater skill and power, or, since the days of Buffon, had 
Ornithology been set forth with greater eloquence. To remedy, in some 
degree, this unavoidable loss, and to preserve at least a portion of the 
fruits of his labours, Huxley, a few weeks after, presented an abstract of 
his researches to the Zoological Society, in whose Proceedings for the same 
year it will be found printed (pp. 415-472) as a paper ‘ On the Classifica- 
tion of Birds, and on the taxonomic value of the modifications of certain 
of the cranial bones observable in that Class’? Starting from the basis 
(which, undeniably true as it is, not a little shocked many of his 
ornithological hearers) “that the phrase ‘Birds are greatly modified 
Reptiles’ would hardly be an exaggerated expression of the closeness” 
of the resemblance between the two Classes, which he had previously 
brigaded under the name of Sauwropsida (as he had brigaded the Pisces and 
Amphibia as Ichthyopsida), he drew in bold outline both their likenesses 
and their differences, and then proceeded to enquire how the Aves could 
be most appropriately subdivided into Orders, Suborders and Families. 
In this course of lectures he had already dwelt at some length on the 
insufficiency of the characters on which such groups as had hitherto been 
thought to be established were founded ; but for the consideration of this 
part of his subject there was no room in the present paper, and the reasons 
why he arrived at the conclusion that new means of philosophically and 
successfully separating the class must be sought were herein left to be in- 
ferred. The upshot, however, admits of no uncertainty : the Class Aves was 
held to be composed of three “Orders”—-SauRuR& (p. 814); Rarira 
Birds,’ communicated by Prof. Lilljeborg to the Zoological Society in 1866, and 
published in its Proceedings for that year (pp. 5-20), since it was immediately after 
reprinted by the Smithsonian Institution, and with that authorization has exercised a 
great influence on the opinions of American ornithologists. Otherwise the scheme 
would hardly need notice here. This paper is indeed little more than an English 
translation of one published by the author in the annual volume (Arsshkrift) of the 
Scientific Society of Upsala for 1860; and, belonging to the pre-Darwinian epoch, 
should perhaps have been more properly treated before, but that at the time of its 
original appearance it failed to attract attention. The chief merit of the scheme perhaps 
is that, contrary to nearly every precedent, it begins with the lower and rises to the 
higher groups of Birds, which is of course the natural mode of proceeding, and one 
therefore to be commended. Otherwise the “principles” on which it is founded are 
not clear to the ordinary zoologist. One of them is said to be “irritability,” which 
is explained to mean, not “muscular strength alone, but vivacity and activity 
generally,” and on this ground it is stated that the Passeres should be placed 
highest in the Class. But those who know the habits and demeanour of many of 
the Limicole would no doubt rightly claim for them much more “ vivacity and 
activity ” than is possessed by most Passeres. “ Irritability ” does not seem to form 
a character that can be easily appreciated either as to quantity or quality ; in fact most 
persons would deem it quite immeasurable, and, as such, removed from practical con- 
sideration. Moreover, Prof. Lilljeborg’s scheme, being actually an adaptation of that 
of Sundevall, of which we shall have to speak almost immediately, may possibly be 
left for the present with these remarks, 
