So 



Correspondence. 



[January 



tremely few adult 'transients' are recorded as observed in July and 

 August. Are there not some members of the A. O. U. who can throw 

 light upon the subject? 



Respectfully yours, 



ClIARLKS WlCKLIFFK BECKHAM. 



Bardstovjtt, Ay. . Nov. J3, 1S86. 



Classification of the Macrochires. 



To the Editors of The Auk:— 



Sirs: — Once more I must ask your indulgence in the matter of a little 

 space, as I have a word or two to say in regard to Mr. Lucas's paper on 

 'The Affinities of Chaitura' which appeared in the last number of this 

 journal (Oct., 18S6), and from the reading of which I find that I have on 

 my hands another ornithologist who takes exception to the further 

 separation of the Cypseli and Trochili, more than is now generally agreed 

 to by the majority, perhaps, of systematists in their schemes of classifica- 

 tion. 



It is not my intention on the present occasion either to add or subtract 

 anything to what I have already contributed to the morphology of the 

 Macrochires. for by so doing 1 would forestall the conclusions of my 

 further researches in this matter that I now have in hand. 



Mr. Lucas says. "Nevertheless, until still more evidence to the contrary 

 is adduced. I will hold fast to Huxley's union of Hummingbirds and Swifts" 



(P- 444)- 



Now at the present writing I have been over two years in a position 

 where 1 have not been able to avail myself of either the libraries or the 

 museums, and have at my command but a limited working field library; 

 so that it is quite possible that Professor Huxley may have recently changed 

 his views in regard to the taxonomy of the Macrochires, and I not have 

 known of it. But, I do know that in 1S67 he wrote the following sentences, 

 to wit: "In their cranial characters, the Swifts are far more closely allied 

 with the Swallows than with any of the Desmognathous birds, the Swift 

 presenting but a very slight modification of the true Passerine type ex- 

 hibited by the Swallow. No distinction can be based upon the propor- 

 tions of the regions of the fore limb: since in all the Swallows which I have 

 examined [//. pacijica, II. riparia. II. rustica. and II. urbica~\, the manus 

 and antibrachium respectively, greatly exceed the humerus in length, 

 though the excess is not so great as in Cypselus" (P. Z. S. , Apr. 1S67, p. 

 456). And again in the same paper he says '-The CypselidcE are very 

 closely related to the Swallows among the Coracomorpha:" (p. 469). 

 Mark you, Professor Huxley here says "very closely related." In other 

 words, at the time that this eminent biologist formulated his 'Classification 

 of Birds' in the memoir in question, he evidently believed that Swifts were 

 but profoundly modified Swallows. Believing this as he did, I am the more 



