° ' iQiQ j Correspondence. 353 



April 'Auk,' upon my careful work on the osteology of all these birds — 

 published nearly a quarter of a century ago — which in any way induces 

 me to change my opinion. He further states (loc. cit. 153) : " In its osteo- 

 logical features the Sheath-bill presents certain resemblances to the Oyster- 

 catcher," — a fact that I stated in 'The Auk' over twenty-three years ago, 

 but which Doctor Lowe seems to have overlooked. That my present 

 belief is that the pigeon and fowl reseryihlances, plainly seen in the skull of a 

 Sheath-bill, are, in a way, resemblances only, is amply substantiated in a 

 much more recent article of mine, which my critic likewise seems to have 

 entirely overlooked in his Chionis contribution, and which 'The Auk' 

 ignored when it came to republish his comments. I refer to my article on 

 "An Arrangement of the Families and the Higher Groups of Birds," which 

 appeared in 'The American Naturalist' for November-December, 1904 

 (pp. S33-S56), and in which I place the Suborder Chionides between the 

 Longipennes and the Charadriiformes, where I most emphatically take it 

 they belong. 



Doctor Lowe, in the course of his argument, refers to Marsh and his 

 genus Palacolringa, — a form that probably had no more Tringa in it than it 

 had ostcological characters of a good many other very different kinds of 

 Water Birds. But it would be idle to go into that subject here; and I 

 would refer Doctor Lowe to my memoir "Fossil Birds in the Marsh Collec- 

 tion," published by Yale University only last year, for a full discussion of 

 Marsh's types. This paper has over 150 figures on plates, illustrating 

 Marsh's "types" of fossil birds. 



In closing I would say that it is extremely likely that, at this writing. 

 Doctor Lowe and I hold opinions on the relationships of the Sheath-bills 

 to other birds that would be practically very much in agreement; and I 

 trust that, in the future, he will do me the justice to cite my most recent 

 opinions in all cases having to do with avian taxonomy. Probably some of 

 my papers on this subject — - and there are several hundreds of them — are 

 not readily accessible to him, in which case I will be glad to bring their 

 contents before him. 



Faithfully yours, 



R. W. Shufeldt. 

 Washington, D. C, May, 1916. 



