1916] Chandler: Structure of Feathers 331 
imately equal size. The long barbicelled pennulum is without 
pigment, resulting in the hoary appearance above mentioned. The 
breast feathers have a much simplified type of barbules, with a 
series of hooklets and curved ventral cilia which grade into each 
other and are all subequal in size. The pigment is distributed in 
well-defined transverse bars. The down barbules, unlike those of 
the Anseres, are long, 2 mm. or more, being almost simple threads, 
a few inconspicuous prongs being developed at the nodes. 
As will be seen from the above, the Palamedeae are peculiar in 
that they combine the characters of a number of other groups of 
birds in a confusing manner and could not readily be associated 
with any group on the basis of their feather structure. The distal 
barbules of the remiges resemble those of the Anseres in number 
and form of the pennular barbicels, but the ventral teeth are most 
closely paralleled by the Meleagridae; proximals of the remiges 
combine anserine, ciconiid, and galline characters; the barbules of 
the breast feathers constitute a type of their own, probably de- 
generated; and finally the down barbules are long and threadlike, 
unlike either Anseres or Galli, but near the Ciconiidae. 
6. Order FALCONIFORMES 
Plates 22, 23 
The Falconiformes. include a rather well-defined group divisible 
into three distinct suborders, which, as in the case of Anseriformes 
and Ciconiiformes, can more readily be treated separately. As an 
entire group they show unmistakable evidence of being derived 
from a parent stock somewhere intermediate between the Stegano- 
podes and Ciconiae. In the entire order the plumules are uniformly 
distributed, powder down is present in a few, and the aftershaft is 
present in all but the Cathartae, which, however, seem otherwise to 
be the lowest in the evolutionary scale. 
I. Suborder CATHARTAE 
Pl. 22, Fig. 34 
a) Gymnogyps californianus 
(1) Remiges 
Barbs moderately broad, but very heavily built, pith of rami 
more than one cell in thickness. Barbules large, the distals larger 
than usual relative to proximals. Fewer barbules per unit of 
