62 BULLETIN OF THE NUTTALL 



Tyrannidce, I find, as before, only one of these little feathers. In 

 a Woodpecker, remarkable among picarian birds in possessing only 

 nine fully developed primaries, the first being short or spurious, 

 there is also but one. 



It see,ms to be conclusively proven that among the supposed 

 9-primaried birds, the additional primary, making ten in all, is usu- 

 ally, if not always, found in the second of these little quills which 

 overlie the first fully developed primary ; and that it is this same 

 little quill which, in 10-primaried Oscines, in Clamatores, and proba- 

 bly in other birds, comes to the front and constitutes the first regular 

 primary, — sometimes remaining very short, when it is the so-called 

 "spurious" quill, in other cases lengthening by imperceptible de- 

 grees, until it may become the longest one of all. The true nature 

 of the other one of these two little feathers becomes an interest- 

 ing question. Is it also an abortive primary, as the outer certainly 

 is, or is it one of a series of coverts 1 



After close examination, I fail to detect any material difference in 

 the position of the two ; one overlies the other, indeed, as a covert 

 should a primary, but then the two are inserted side by side, both 

 upon the upper side of the sheath of the first fully developed quill. 

 In size and shape, the two are substantially the same ;' both being 

 rigid and acuminate, more like remiges than like coverts, and both 

 being abruptly shorter than the true primary coverts. J So far, all the 

 evidence favors an hypothesis that both are rudimentary remiges. 

 To offset this, color usually points the other way, as in the original 

 case of Vireo flavifrons, in which Professor Baird determined the 

 underlying one of the two feathers to be a supposed wanting pri- 

 mary mainly because it was colored like the other primaries, while 

 the overlying one agreed with the coverts in this respect. But it 

 will be obvious that when, as is oftenest the case, the primaries and 

 their coverts are colored alike, the evidence from this source fails 

 altogether ; and I find that the testimony from coloration is some- 

 times the other way. In Sitta carolinensis, for example, a 10-prima- 

 ried bird with spurious first primary, the single remaining little 

 feather is white at base across both webs, like the primaries, the 

 true primary coverts being white only on the inner web. It is true 

 that the overlying one of these little feathers sometimes exactly 

 resembles a true covert ; but so, also, does the other one in some 

 cases. In morphological determinations, position and relation of 

 parts are all-important, while mere size, shape, and especially func- 



