36 Dr. R. W. Shufeldt on the Taxonomy 



like him) : he clearly saw the relations existing among the 

 birds we now have under consideration. A number of 

 years ago Professor Parker read for me before the Linnean 

 Society of London a memoir upon this subject (Linn. Soc. 

 Journ. vol. xx.)^ and of it he was so good as to write me 

 (Sept. 30, 1887) that he considered it " Hke Garrod's best 

 work and mine [his] combined " ; but in another letter he 

 gave me an opinion of bis whicb is far more important 

 than that. This letter was of an earlier date^, and in 

 it he wrote that " this fact remains — the only birds out- 

 side the huge group of tbe 5000 Coracomorphse that have 

 the aff it ho (jnat holts palate are the Swifts: either they arose 

 from the same stock as the Swallows, or tbey came from 

 a type very nearly related, — and Newton says that tbe 

 Swallows are a very isolated group of Passeres; yet tbey 

 have many characters typical, inside and out.^' An opinion 

 of that kind is not a " snap judgement," but is written by 

 one wbo daily studied the relations of birds for forty years. 

 Some day and in another place, perhaps, I propose to pub- 

 lish a series of Professor Parker^s letters to myself tbat 

 contain much of interest to ornithologists, and views that 

 up to the time of his lamented death he had not committed 

 to print. 



So much for a few of the authorities that Mr. Lucas so 

 earnestly seeks ; and Dr. Fiirbringer, in his work, can supply 

 him with a number of others. 



My critic believes that it is through Chatura that the 

 Swifts have relations with the Humming-birds (p. 365), 

 and yet holds me up for having uttered " sweeping gene- 

 ralizations based on the examination and comparison of a 

 limited number of local forms" (p. 371). Now it was to 

 the anatomy of Chatura that I paid especial attention in 

 my Linnean memoir, and compared it in detail with the 

 anatomy of several genera and species of Humming-birds; 

 and I failed to find then, and do not see at this moment 

 any great amount of structural resemblance between them. 



* Dated from Crowlaud, Trinity Road, Upper Tooting, S.W., Feb. 9, 

 1887. 



