OSTEOLOGY OF BIRDS 



I/I 



common fowl having so long been used as a sort of a type in the 

 study of the avian skeleton; and the general skeletal characters of 

 that form are quite similar in miost of the other genera of this 

 suborder. 



In 1867, Professor Huxley grouped in his "Alectoromorphae " 

 of his suborder Schizognathae all the true gallinaceous birds^ and 

 after presenting their principal characters, he says : " Excluding 

 the Pigeons and the Tinamidae, the group corresponds with the 

 Gallinae of authors, and contains the families Turnicidae, Phasi- 

 anidae, Pteroclidae, Megapodidae, and Cracidae. 



" The Turnicidae approach the Charadriomorphae, the Ptero- 

 clidae, the Peristeromorphae ; while the Cracidae have relations with 

 the birds of prey on the one hand, and with Palamedea and the 

 other Chenomorphae on the other." [Zool. Soc. Lond. Proc. 1867. 

 p. 426,432, 433>.459]' 



A great deal of information and many fine figures are also to 

 be found in Kitchen Parker's memoir On the Osteology of the 

 Gallinaceous Birds and Tinamous [Zool. Soc. Lond. Trans. 1864. 

 V. 5], and Prof. Max Fiirbringer offers the following classification 

 of this group. 



Alectoromithes. . 

 (Chameomithes) 



SUBORDER 



A pterygif ormes 

 Crypturiformes 



Galliformes 



GROUP FAMILY 



f Apterygidae 



Apteryges \ Dinornithidae 



Crypturi .Crypturidae 



' Sens. str. Me- 

 gapodiidae 

 Sens. str. Cra- 

 cidae 

 Sens. lat. Gallidae { Sens. str. Gal- 

 I lidae s.Alec- 

 i toropodes 

 , Sens. lat. Opisthocomidae 



Sens. lat. Galli 



This author in his diagrammatic avian tree in the same work 

 (Morphologic iind Systonatik dcr Vogel) seems to separate the 

 galline and columbine stocks too far, and in that the present writer 

 does not agree. However, Professor Fiirbringer in the continua- 

 tion of the scheme given above places the two " suborders " Colum- 

 biformes and Psittaciformes as intermediate between the "Alec- 

 toromithes " and his " Coracornithes," an arrangement we can very 

 readily agree to, in part. 



Alfred Newton has said that " the Gallinae w^ould seem to hold 

 a somewhat central position among existing members of the cari- 

 nate division, whence many groups diverge, and one of them, the 



* In the paper to which reference has just been made, Professor Huxley presents us 

 with a figure of the under view of Tetrao urogallus, and two figures of the 

 skull of Crax globicera. 



