120 A^ofes and N'eivs. [Jamiaiv 



'a complete synonymy from 1776 to the present time,' a rather appalling 

 announcement, and one involving a vast change in ornithological 

 nomenclature, as it will pi-eclude the use of Linnsean names." 



At the last meeting of the A. O. U. the Council, which has hitherto 

 acted as a Publication Committee, relegated this function to a committee, 

 consisting of the President and Secretary, Dr. Coues, Mr. Ridgway, and 

 Mr. Brewster, most of whom were formerly on the Editorial Staff" of 'The 

 Auk,' which now consists of the editor and one assistant editor, the latter 

 being Mr. C F. Batchelder, of Cambridge, Mass. Being assured of effi- 

 cient aid in the work of carrying on the journal, Mr. Allen consented to 

 retain the editorship for another year, Mr. Batchelder kindly taking upon 

 himself the greater part of the labor. 



The 'sensation of the hour' in certain scientific circles in New York City 

 is an alleged discovery of great significance in the mechanism of birds' 

 wind's, whereby the extension of the wing in soaring is maintained automat- 

 ically, or without the exertion of any muscular force on the part of the 

 bird. That there is a mechanism for this purpose, resulting from the 

 peculiar structure and relations of the bones of the fore-arm and hand, 

 was lono- since discovered 6y anatomists, and is more or less well known 

 to every well-informed ornithologist. But the 'discovery' now under 

 notice is of a diff'erent character, having no relation to the bony frame- 

 work of the wing, but to the primaries, and the alleged ability of the bird 

 to so rotate the individual feathers at will as to practically turn them 

 wrono- side out! In other words, the inner vane of the first primary is 

 brouo-ht from its normal position and function of underlying and support- 

 ing the second primary and made to overlie the second primary, — -that is 

 the first primary is imbricated upon instead of beneath the second, as it 

 is normally seen — and in like manner the second upon the third, and 

 the third upon the fourth, and so on. This position of the feathers, it is 

 alleged, keeps the wing from closing, and enables the bird to soar indefi- 

 nitely without experiencing fatigue. The fact that such a position of the 

 feathers greatly weakens the power of support, by permitting the air to 

 pass freelv through the wing between the vanes of the primaries, and is 

 besides so obviously contrary to the whole plan of a bird's wing as an 

 effective instrument of flight, to say nothing of the well-known inability 

 of the bird to thus arrange the primary quills, were points too trivial, in 

 the opinion of the advocates of the new theory, to be entitled to serious 

 consideration. 



The matter was first made public in a communication by Professor W. 

 P. Trowbridge, professor of engineering in Columbia College, to the 

 National Academy of Sciences at its meeting held in November last 

 in New York City. Professor Trowbridge stated that the discovery was 

 made by his son, whose attention was directed to the matter by finding 

 a Hawk he had just shot with the primaries overlapped in the manner 

 above described, suggesting the inference that this arrangement of the 



