of the Sivifts and Humming-birds. 33 



of misquotation/' as Mr. Lucas has termed it (p. 365^ foot- 

 note). What I say here now about Professor Huxley's 

 statements will not be hereafter considered in the light of a 

 misquotation, I am very sure. In his famous contribution 

 to the "Classification of Birds" in the P. Z. S. of April 11, 

 1867j he has first seriously to deal with the Swallows, Swifts, 

 Goatsuckers, and Humming-birds on pp. 452-454 inclusive. 

 The first statement he makes is that "the Swallows com- 

 pletely agree with the other Passerine birds in the general 

 form and arrangement of the bones which enter into the 

 composition of their palates" (p. 452). That is practically 

 true, and it is a very good point to offer as an initial argu- 

 ment. He immediately follows that statement by saying : — 

 " And the Swifts essentially resemble the Swallows, though 

 the form and proportions of the palatine bones are somewhat 

 different " [and to prove it he refers to his figure of C. ajms, 

 fig. 34] . This statement is equally true, and the only 

 remarkable part of it is that he makes the comparison 

 between the Swifts and the Swallows, and not with the 

 Swifts and the Humming-birds. Omitting now what he 

 says about the Swifts and Caprimulgus and its allies in the 

 next three paragraphs, we find him first referring to Trochilus 

 on p. 454, but not comparing its palate with a Swift — simply 

 stating that '' Trochilus has the true Passerine vomer, with its 

 broad and truncated anterior and deeply cleft posterior end. 

 I have not yet been able to obtain a perfectly satisfactory 

 view of the structure and arrangement of the palatine bones 

 in the Humming-birds." As both Parker and I myself have 

 pointed out for him. Professor Huxley was entirely wrong 

 about the vomer in the Tro chili, for every avian anatomist 

 now knows quite well that the vomer of a Humming-bird is 

 of an entirely different structure from the same bone in a 

 Swift. 



Following him along, the next paragraph that touches 

 upon the subject under consideration is on p. 456; and 

 there Professor Huxley simply states, what is very true, 

 that "in their cranial characters the Swifts are far more 

 closely allied with the Swallows than with any of the desmo- 



SER. VI. VOL. VI. D 



