IOO Shufeldt on the Ckionididce. X April 



group 'Limicolas,' which leads us to infer that they believed it 

 to be most nearly related to the Plovers. 1 In 1SS0 Mr. Sclater 

 still retained the 'Chionididae' in the Limicolae, placing the family 

 between the Charadriidae and the Thinocoridae. 2 Garrod, who 

 was always prone to lay too great stress upon single characters, 

 sustained Kidder and Coues in their opinion upon the affinities 

 of Chionis, and believed them to be chiefly larine. He adds, 

 nevertheless, "that the genus deserves to be located in a separate 

 division, how r ever, as Dr. Coues suggests, I cannot agree," and 

 further "that Dr. Coues's account of the myology of Chionis 

 minor is incomplete as far as the varying muscles are concerned." 

 Strange to say, Garrod found, in studying the muscles, the fol- 

 lowing, directly militating against his expressed opinion — 

 namely, the Laridae all lack the accessory femoro-caudal, while 

 certain of the Charadriidae as well as both Chionis minor and 

 C. alba possess it. Every one of these families possesses the 

 ambiens. 3 Now the principal fault to be found in the work of 

 Doctors Kidder and Coues, is that the major part of their dissec- 

 tions were not made comparative. As Garrod noticed, their 

 dissections of the muscles is extremely deficient. Their studies 

 of the 'viscera' of Chionis are even more so, and, finally, there is 

 barely any evidence whatever in their study of the skeleton of C. 

 minor that it was critically compared with-the skeletons of such 

 genera as Larus, Ha:matopns, Alca, or a species of the Gallince 

 Professor Parker who was always great in his comparisons of 

 the details in the skeletons of many kinds of birds from every 

 conceivable group, and who possessed clear taxonomical ideas in 

 his generalizations, as a rule, believed, when he gave his 'scheme' 

 of the relationships of Pluvialis, that the Plovers through Hceni- 

 atopns and Chionis were connected with the Tubinares on the 

 one hand, and through Glareola and Sterna were connected 

 with the Laridae upon the other. That Parker spoke of Chionis 

 as a "thoroughly marine Plover," and not as a thoroughly ter- 

 restrial Gull, is good evidence upon what he thought about the 



1 Sclater, P. L., and Salvin, O. — Nomenclator Avium Neotropicalum, p. 142. 1873. 



2 Sclater, P. L. — Remarks on the Present State of the Systema Avium. Ibis (4 

 ser.), IV, 1880, p. 340. 



3 Garrod, A. H. — Coll. Sci. Mem. pp. 221, 222, 419. 1881. 



