290 Letters, Extracts, Notices, ^c. 



obviously amphibian a character as the opercular fold in the 

 embryo of Apteryx appears to be a feature of very con- 

 siderable morphological importance/' He had not met 

 with any record of its occurrence in other Sauropsida. It 

 is well known that the late Prof. W. K. Parker dwelt in 

 later years more upon the amphibian than the reptilian 

 characters of birds ; he compared, for instance, the curious 

 " OS uncinatum,'' connecting in a few types the ectethmoids 

 with the palatine, to the attachment in the tadpole of the 

 palato-pterygoid cartilages with the skull. These facts seem 

 to favour this attitude with regard to birds, and to emphasize 

 the low position in the series of the Struthious division. 



The Parasitism of Cassidix oryzivora. — Dr. Goeldi (in 

 reply to the remarks made, ' Ibis,' 1896, p. 586) calls our 

 attention to the fact that he has already indicated the 

 parasitic habits of Cassidix oryzivora in his ' Aves do Brasil ' 

 (p. 284). The " Meiro," as it is called in the Serra dos 

 Orgjios, he there states, introduces its eggs into the nests of 

 other birds, and does not incubate itself. Moreover, in 

 December 1892, a nest and two young birds were brought to 

 him as belonging to the "Japu,'' Ostinnps cristatus. He 

 remarked that one of the fledglings had no yellow in the 

 tail-feathers. As the birds grew older it became manifest 

 that one of the supposed " Japus " was a young Cassidix 

 oryzivora, while the other was that of Ostinops cristatus. 

 Dr. Goeldi has also sent us an article containing further 

 particulars on this subject, which we shall publish in ' The 

 Ibis ' for July. In the meanwhile we may state that there 

 can be no doubt that the priority of the discovery of the 

 parasitism of Cassidix rests with Dr. Goeldi. 



The Generic Name of the Swifts. — As is well known, 

 Micropus (although in use for a genus of plants) has of 

 recent years been put forward by some systematists as the 

 correct generic term for the Swifts, to be used instead of 

 Cypseliis (see our remarks, 'Ibis,' 1894, p. 131). It appears, 



