108 Dr. n. W. Shufeldt on the 



of the Cecomorplise in Dr. Stejneger's scheme ; Dr. Fiir- 

 bringer giving still other new names for orders, suborders, and 

 genera, places them between the Flamingoes and the extinct 

 Hesperornithidai ; we find them among the Galliformes in 

 Seebohm's arrangement ; and, finally, considered as two 

 separate orders by Dr. Sharpe. Still other eminent tax- 

 onomers, as Cope, Professors Gadow and Newton, take 

 diflferent views of the subject. In 1890 Professor D'Arcy 

 W. Thompson and the present writer pointed out quite 

 independently of each other the fact that the Loons and 

 Grebes were descendants of the Hesperornithida3, an opinion 

 previously expressed by Cope and Furbringer. At great 

 variance with this, Professor Newton, Lydekker, and Marsh 

 contended that these extinct Cretaceous divers were some 

 kind of a natatorial Ostrich. These so-called ostrich or 

 '' struthious characters " have been a stumbling-block in times 

 past to more than one avian systematist, but I think their 

 real significance is gradually coming to be better appreciated 

 as time goes on. The great probability is tliat there was a 

 time in the former history of the class, possibly at about the 

 age when llesperomis flourished, that all birds exhibited such 

 characters in their skeletons. They are retained now only in 

 a few and widely separated groups or families, as the Kiwis, 

 the Tinamus, Oi^triches, and some others. 



Now, apart from a general and superficial resemblance, a 

 typical Loon and a typical Grebe are not, to judge from their 

 osteology, as near akin as many seem to think. Differences 

 of a very marked character distinguish their skulls, their 

 vertebral columns, their sterna, their pelves, and their limb- 

 bones. Still there is a greater similarity between the skeleton 

 of a Loon and a Grebe than there is between a Loon and any 

 representative of the Alc£e. About this fact I have satisfied 

 myself after having compared, character for character, as they 

 occur in the skeletons of several species of Loons with the 

 corresponding ones in a number of Grebes, and both with all 

 the Auks found in our United States avifauna save Gero- 

 rhinca. D'Arcy Thompson has shown, beyond all question 

 in my opinion, in his paper " On the Systematic Position of 

 Hesperornis,^^ the affinity of our modern or existing Colymbi 

 with that ancient diver. It would seem then that the time 

 cannot be far distant wlien naturalists can at least agree upon 

 the relations that these birds bear to each other and to 

 kindred groups. To express this relationship, Loons and 

 Grebes should be associated in one and the same suborder, 

 and a superfamily created for either assemblage. In a linear 

 classification 1 believe their nearest relatives are the Penguins 



