The Cubital Coverts of tlie Euronithcr. 319 



which Mr Seebohm lays so much stress, or upon the number 

 of eggs laid, must also come under the same category. To 

 these must be added tlie grouping based upon the presence, 

 or the absence, of the fifcli cubital remex, which Messrs 

 Gerbe, AVray, Gadow, Sclater, and others have described in 

 detail. 



To these I may now venture to add, the disposition 

 of the Cubital Coverts, wliich formed the subject of a paper 

 read before the Zoological Society of London, and published 

 in the Proc. Zool. Soc. for April 1886. In this communica- 

 tion I contented myself with summarising a series of obser- 

 vations extending over the previous sixteen years, the result 

 of the detailed examination of many thousands of specimens 

 — alive, in the flesh, or as cabinet specimens. The facts and 

 the arguments based upon them were quite new ; for although 

 Nitzsch had, as I found after the paper was printed, noticed 

 a certain amount of variation in the particular feature under 

 notice, yet neither I, nor any zoologist with whose opinion I 

 am in the least acquainted, was aware of the fact. Indeed, 

 in the abstract of Mtzsch's paper, which was given many 

 years ago in the Froc, Zool. Soc, no mention whatever was 

 made of the features specially under notice. Nor does it 

 seem to have been observed either by Professor Flower or by 

 his able coadjutor Mr Wray while they were working out the 

 subject in connection with the beautiful series of preparations 

 in the Index Collection at the Natural History Museum. 



Mr Wray communicated a very valuable paper on the 

 wings of birds, about a year after mine was published, and in 

 this paper a nomenclature much superior to the one I had 

 previously used was employed. In the present paper, there- 

 fore, I adopt, generally, and with some slight modifications, 

 the nomenclature referred to. Some of his facts and opinions 

 have also been embodied. In the present paper I shall 

 attempt to review the subject generally, so as to be able to 

 apply the conclusions to a scheme of classification based 

 exclusively upon the disposition of the Cubital Coverts. 

 This, of course, is proposed merely as a tentative scheme, and 

 is advanced solely with a view to calling attention to the 

 importance of this feature as a new factor, which hereafter 



