34 Dr. R. W. Shufeldt on the Taxonomy 



gnathous birds, the Swift presenting but a very slight modi- 

 fication of the true Passerine type exhibited by the Swallow. 

 No distinction can be based upon the proportions of the 

 regions of the fore limb ; since in all the Swallows which 

 I have examined the manus and the antebrachium, respec- 

 tively, greatly exceed the humerus in length, though the 

 excess is not so great as in Cypselus." This is actually all 

 that occurs on these points in the descriptive part of his 

 memoir. There is not a single comparison between a Swift 

 and a Humming-bird, but only a gross error in the matter 

 of the morphology of the vomer in Trochilus ; added to this, 

 we have several favourable comparisons between Swifts and 

 Swallows. 



With this kind of information. Professor Huxley carries 

 us on to the taxonomical part of his memoir. The group 

 that interests us here is found upon pp. 468 and 469 — the 

 Cypselomorphae, which he claims " contains three very distinct 

 famiHes — the Trochilida, the Cypselid(S, and the Capri- 

 muJgidce." The meagre list of characters upon which these 

 families are arranged do not exist as Huxley says they do, or 

 thinks they do. In the first place, Trochilus has a slender spine- 

 like vomer, and the bone is not " truncated at the anterior 

 end"; and, moreover, the statement that "the lower larynx has 

 not more than one pair of intrinsic muscles " is simply not 

 true, but it is true that the morphology of the trachea and its 

 associated parts, myology and all, are essentially very different 

 indeed in Swifts and Humming-birds. Finally, he closes 

 what he has to say about his " Cypselomorphae " and their 

 affinities without a single direct comparison between a Swift 

 and a Humming-bird except that " the Cypselida are very 

 closely related to the Swallows among the Coracomorphse," 

 in which statement I most emphatically agree with him. 



The fact is Huxley, at the time he wrote his " Classification 

 of Birds,'' had by no means Humming-bird material enough 

 to judge by. He had more Swift-material, and this he com- 

 pared with four species of Swallows and could not avoid 

 being impressed by the evident resemblances, and so stated 

 them. His material, however, would not justify him in taking 



