Classification of Birds. 107 



The researches of the Parkers in the development of the 

 embryological skeleton of birds ; of Huxley in the skull ; and 

 the labours of MacgiUivray, Nitzsch, Merrem, De BlainviUe, 

 L'Herminier, Cuvier, yt.-IIilaire, Gervais, Blanchard, Byton, 

 Owen, Garrod, Forbes, Fiirbringer, Gadovv, Lucas, Beddard, 

 and many others upon the general skeleton ; with the study 

 of pala3ontological osteology by Milne-Edwards, Cope, Marsh, 

 and their colleagues in the same field, would, when taken in 

 the aggregate, go far toward establishing a natural classifica- 

 tion, or, rather, toward indicating the true affinities of birds.^ 

 Still, in face of all this, we must believe that osteology is 

 by no means an all-sufficing guide, nor has it been in the 

 mind of the present writer in his attempts to discover the true 

 kinships existing among birds, their systematic positions, and 

 the places the various natural groups should occupy in any 

 scheme of classification. 



On the contrary, the aim has been to examine with care 

 into the results of the anatomical and general biological 

 investigations of birds by whomsoever they may have been 

 undertaken and published, so long as those researches seemed 

 to have any bearing upon the solution of the true atfinities of 

 the class. With this in view a very wide field of literature 

 has been considered and the works of a great many authors 

 examined. All through this osteology has held the main 

 place, but constantly subject to subordination when factors 

 drawn from other anatomical systems or from the general 

 life-histories of the bird-groups possessed beyond all doubt 

 greater weight and significance. 



Bearing this in mind, and from osteological premises, let 

 us now proceed to examine into the probable affinities of 

 certain birds or groups of birds and how we should classify 

 them. An inquiry of this kind would hardly seem to require 

 any apology, inasmuch as no two systematists of all tliose 

 who have published a scheme of classification for Aves since 

 1867, when Professor Huxley gave us his, agree upon the 

 position in the system and the affinities of not a few of the 

 natural avian assemblages. Take, for example, the Grebes 

 and Loons. Huxley associated them with the Laridae, Pro- 

 cellariidge, and Alcidie in his group Cecomorph^; Garrod 

 placed them among the Ducks and Penguins in the Anseres ; 

 Forbes included the Heliornitidge with them, and created a 

 new group, Eretopodes ; Dr. Sclater retained them as a 

 family Colymbidai with the Alcidaj in the order Pygopodes ; 

 Keichenow did the same, but added the Penguins to the 

 group and called the order Urinatores ; they are a family of 

 a superfamily, and associated with four other superfamilies, 



