BibUographical Notices. 481 



tion of the Quinar)' System — the Swedenborgiaiiism of ornithology 

 — adopted in the days of Vigors. Swainson, \V. S. ifacleay, and 

 Oken ; while an attemj)! is made to claim tardy justice for the 

 honest work ot" I/HirniiMicr, neglected by his contemporaries, who 

 were busied with futile systems. Matter worthy of serious con- 

 sideration, however, begins with the enunciation by Kuxley of the 

 theory now generally accepted, namely that Birds are descended 

 from Reptilian forms ; and the treatise of that distinguished natu- 

 ralist, as well as the schemes of classification proposed by his 

 successors, are here analysed with remarkable lucidity. An 

 imjjortant feature consists in the prominence given to Prof. Fiir- 

 bringer's contribution to Systematic Ornithology, published in 1888 : 

 a work which doe> not seem to have obtained from British natu- 

 ralists the attention it deserves. His researches (to quote Prof. 

 Newton) " put the Reptilian pedigree of Birds and the position of 

 the Ratitic in a wholly new light, incidentally proving the latter to 

 be derived from ancestors fully endowed with wings." It should 

 be mentioned that Prof. Marsh's Odontornithes had already been 

 discussed, and that Prof. Fiirbringer's position does not ujjset 

 Prof, ilarsh's contention that the first Birds had not the faculty of 

 flight. '' It only makes evident that between the volant forefathers 

 of the modern Ratitse and the very first Birds there intervened an 

 indefinite but great number of forms, of which few, if any, traces 

 are known to us, and tiiat the origin of Birds is far mure remote 

 than we had been inclined to suppose. Birds, considers Prof. Fiir- 

 bringer, since they spring from Reptiles, must have begun with 

 toothed forms of small or moderate size, with long tails and four 

 Lizard-like feet, having distinct metacarpals and metatarsals, besides 

 well-formed claws, while their bodies were clothed with a very 

 primitive kind of down.'' He traces the development of these 

 forms to their gradual attainment of the faculty of fiight, and their 

 improvement in that direction, until we find the type of the higher 

 or better Birds of Flight established in the Cretaceous IchtJij/ornis 

 and including the vast majority of existing Birds commonly grouped 

 as Carinatte. But during the period that the higher and lower 

 types were being differentiated came a retrograde movement and a 

 dwindling of the volant power — the drift of tlie evidence being that 

 the Ratitio are not entitled to be considered a distinct subclass, 

 but that they diverged from their flying ancestoi-s at different epochs. 

 Such seem to be some of the principal points in Prof. Xewton's 

 excellent epitome ; and if in the space at our disposal v\'e have done 

 him an injustice, the reader must apply the antidote by reference to 

 the original (pp. 100-105). For the Author's able review of the 

 present position of the taxonomy of Birds, pp. 108-120 must be 

 carefully studied. 



To the present work Dr. Hans Gadow has contributed many 

 valuable articles on Anatomy : such as Colour, Embryology, Feathers, 

 Digestive, Muscular, and Vascular Systems, Pterylosis, Skeleton, &c., 

 these being distinguished by Italic type. Mr. R. Lydekker has ably 

 undertaken the Fossil Birds ; an article on Flight by the late 



