° 1915 ] Palmer, In Memoriam: Theodore Nicholas Gill. 397 



on cage birds, ostrich farming, anatomy, and physiology in addition 

 to descriptions of new species and reviews of faunal works and 

 museum catalogues. 



In the volumes for 1881 and 1882 he introduced a feature of 

 special interest which might well be revived today, namely, a list 

 of "Birds Added to the American Fauna," including new species 

 and extralimital species recorded for the first time within the limits 

 of North America. Twelve species were included in the list for 

 1881 (p. 487) and 21 species in that for 1882 (pp. 628-29). Such 

 a list published in the January number of ' The Auk ' would be a 

 very convenient annual record of the new forms to be considered 

 as additions to the Check-List. 



Gill's comments on some of the articles while necessarily brief 

 are characteristic. Thus in speaking of a paper on the classifi- 

 cation of birds by Dr. P. L. Sclater which had recently appeared, 1 

 he says: "The tendency to give an exaggerated value to trivial 

 characters still lingers. One author, for example recognizes two 

 sub-classes and 26 orders in this most homogeneous of types, and 

 for the little morphologically diversified Passeres not less than 53 

 families are provided ! " 2 This statement suggests Gill's earlier 

 expression of his views, in what was apparently one of his first 

 publications on birds, which appeared in the Introduction to Baird, 

 Brewer, and Ridgway's 'History of North American Birds.' This 

 contribution although signed with his initials is easily overlooked, 

 and the circumstances attending its preparation do not seem to be 

 generally known. Gill himself states 3 that one bright afternoon 

 in August, 1873, while a guest of Professor Baird at Peake's Island, 

 near Portland, Me., having been requested to prepare the Intro- 

 duction to the 'Land Birds' then nearing completion he dictated 

 to Baird's secretary the paragraphs which form pages xi-xiy of 

 the ' History.' It was only natural that Baird should have invited 

 Gill who had published two or three years before his remarkable 

 Arrangements of the Families of Mammals and of Mollusks to 

 undertake a similar task for the birds. Upon his return to Wash- 

 ington, Gill cpllected all the skeletons and skulls of birds available 



i Ibis, IV, 1880, pp. 340-350; 399-411. 



2 Smithsonian Rept., 1880, p. 377. 



3 Osprey, III, p. 91, Feb. 1899. 



