IIo DICTIONARY OF BIRDS 
hangers-on about the character of which there can any longer be room to 
hesitate, there can be little risk in setting them apart. Next comes a 
category of groups in which differentiation appears not to have been 
earried so far, and, though there may be as little doubt as to the associa- 
tion in one Order of the greater number of forms commonly assigned to 
each, yet there are in every case more or fewer outliers that do not well 
harmonize with the rest. Here we have such groups as those called 
Pygopodes, Gavix, Limicole, Galline, Columbx, Anseres, Herodiones, 
Steganopodes and Accipitres. Finally it has been sought to establish two — 
groups of types presenting characteristics so diverse as to defy almost any 
definition, and, if it were not almost nonsense to say so, agreeing in little 
more than in the differences. These two groups are those known as 
Picarie and Alectorides ; but, while the majority of Families or genera 
usually referred to the former plainly have some features in common, the 
few Families or genera that have been clubbed together in the latter make 
an assemblage that is quite artificial, though it may be freely owned that 
with our present knowledge it is impossible to determine the natural 
alliances of all of them.1 
That our knowledge is also too imperfect to enable systematists 
successfully to compose a phylogeny of Carinate Birds, and draw out 
their pedigree, ought to be sufficiently evident. We can point to some 
forms which seem to be collaterally ancestral, and among them perhaps 
some of those which have been referred to the group “ Alectorides” just 
mentioned ; and, from a consideration of their Geographical Distribution 
and especially Isolation, it will be obvious that they are the remnants of 
a very ancient and more generalized stock which in various parts of the 
world have become more or less specialized. The very case of the New- 
Caledonian Rhinochetus (KA@U), combining features which occasionally 
recall the Hurypyga (SuN-BirreRN), and again present an unmistakable 
likeness to the Limicole or the Rallidzx, shews that it is without any very 
near relation on the earth, and, if convenience permitted, would almost 
justify us in placing it in a group apart from any other, though possessing 
some characteristics in common with several. 
If we trust to the results at which Huxley arrived, there can be 
little doubt as to the propriety of beginning the Carinate Subclass with 
his Dromxognathe, the Crypturt of Illiger and others, or Trnamovs, for 
their resemblance to the Ratitz is not to be disputed ; though it must be 
borne in mind that their mode of development is not known, and that 
this may, when made out, seriously modify their position ; but of the 
sufficient standing of the Crypturt as an Order there can hardly be a 
question.2 
1 It should have been stated (page 9) that this heterogeneous assemblage called 
an ‘‘Order” by Temminck, was adapted from Illiger’s Family of the same name 
founded in 1811, and then including in addition Cereopsis ; but in neither group was 
there a single Cock-like bird. The Alectrides of Duméril in 1806 consisted of the 
Bustards and Giallinex. 
2 We have seen that Huxley would derive all other existing Carinate Birds from 
the Dromexognathe ; but of course it must be understood in this, as in every other 
similar case, that it is not thereby implied that the modern representatives of the 
Dromxognathous type (namely, the Tinamous) stand in the line of ancestry. 
