02 DICTIONAKYVSOFPEIRDS: 
Cypselide, 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 Centropus phasianus, one of the Birds known as 
Coucats, 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 Cuculidx (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 conformation 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 may be not unreasonably supposed to have had a strong feeling as to 
its efficacy for systematic ends. It was in favour of an arrangement based 
upon the muscles of the thigh, and elaborated by him in 1874, that he 
gave up the arrangement he had published barely more than a year 
before based upon the conformation of the nostrils. Nevertheless it 
appears that even the later of the two methods did not eventually content 
him, and this was only to be expected, though he is said by Forbes (Ibis, 
1881, p. 28) to have remained “satisfied to the last as to the naturalness 
of the two main groups into which he there divided birds ””—Homato- 
GoNATH and ANoMALogonAT&. ‘The key to this arrangement lay in the 
presence or absence of the AMBIENS muscle, “ not because of its own intrinsic 
importance, but because its presence is always associated with peculiarities 
in other parts never found in any Anomalogonatous bird.” Garrod thought 
that so great was the improbability of the same combination of three or 
four different characters (such as an accessory femoro-caudal muscle, a 
tufted oil-cland and caca) arising independently in different Birds that 
similar combinations of characters could only be due to blood-relationship. 
The ingenuity with which he found and expressed these combinations of 
characters is worthy of all praise ; the regret is that time was wanting 
for him to think out all their consequences, and that he did not take also _ 
into account other and especially osteological characters. Every osteologist 
must recognize that the neglect of these makes Garrod’s proposed classi- 
fication as unnatural as any that had been previously drawn up, and 
more unnatural than many. So much is this the case that, with the 
knowledge we have that ere his death he had already seen the need of 
introducing some modifications iuto it, its reproduction here, even in the 
briefest abstract possible, would not be advisable. Two instances, however, 
of its failure to shew natural affinities or differences may be cited. The 
first Order Galliformes of his Subclass Homalogonatx is made to consist 
of three “Cohorts ”—Struthiones, Gallinacee and Psittaci—a somewhat 
astonishing alliance ; but even if that be allowed to pass, we find the 
second “Cohort” composed of the Families Palamedeidx, Gallinz, Rallhide, 
Otidide (containing two Subfamilies, the Bustards and the Flamingoes), 
Musophagide and Cuculide. Again the Subclass Anomalogonate includes 
three Orders—Piciformes, Passeriformes, Cypseliformes—a preliminary to 
which at first sight no exception need be taken ; but immediately we look 
into details we find the Alcedinide placed in the first Order and the 
Meropidx in the second, together with the Passeres and a collection of 
