156 Jeffries 017 tlie Primaries of Birds. 



ON THE NUMBER OF PRIMARIES IN BIRDS. 



BY J. AMORY JEFFRIES. 



Little attention has been paid to the number of primaries in 

 the different species of birds save in the Oscines, where the 

 number has been supposed to vary from nine to ten. In [840 

 Nitzsch, in his great work on the feather tracts of birds, showed 

 that nearly all birds, except the nine-primaried species, had ten 

 primaries. However, he showed that the Storks, Flamingoes. 

 some species of Colymbus, Alca torda. and some species of 

 Uria had eleven primaries. Later Sundevall* showed that the 

 wing feathers are, like those of the rest of the body, in quincunx 

 order. In treating of the primaries, lie says that they vary from 

 nine to eleven, the only cases of the last number being found in 

 Podiccps, Phanicopterus, Anastomus, Tantalus, Ciconia. 

 Musophaga, and CorytJiaix. The first primary, when present, 

 is inserted on the third phalanx of the II finger, at least in Podi- 

 ccps. the second primary on the second phalanx, the third and fourth 

 on the first phalanx, and the rest on the metacarpal. Sundevall 

 also states that there are as many coverts as primaries. 



Until the publication of Band's •• Review of American Birds." 

 it was supposed that Passerine birds varied in the number of their 

 primaries, some families, as the Thrushes, having ten prima- 

 ries, others, as the Tanagers, and Finches, having nine, and in 

 one group, the Vireos, some species were thought to have nine, 

 others ten primaries. In the work above referred to Professor 

 Baird showed that in nine-primaried Osciues there were two 

 " little feathers " placed at the end of the wing, which he con- 

 siders, judging from position and color, to be the first primary 

 and covert. In ten-primaried birds there is but one little feather. 

 which Professor Baird called a covert. 



In 1S76, Dr. Couesf repeated the observations of Professor 

 Baird in all the North American families of Oscines. He found 

 that, with the possible exception of Collurio and Ampclis.\ all 



* Kong. Vetenskaps Academien Handlingar, 1843, ubersetzt im Cabanis's Journ. fur 

 Orn., III. Jahr. (1855), pp. 118-168. 

 t Bull. Nutt. Ornith. Club, I, No. 3, Sept., 1876, pp. 60-63. 

 \ . Impelis has two little feathers. 



