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A REVIEW OF THE SPECIES OF THE GENUS NUMENIUS. 
By Henry SeEsoum. 
Tue Curlews belong unmistakably to the Scolopacine group of 
the Charadriide. If the bill from the frontal feathers to the tip 
be divided into four equal parts, the whole of the nasal orifice is 
found to be situated well within the basal fourth part. From 
two large groups of Scolopacine birds, the Snipes (Scolopax) 
and the Cleft-toed Sandpipers (T'’ringa), the Curlews may easily 
be distinguished by the presence of a rudimentary web at the 
base of the toes; but to distinguish them from the other 
Scolopacine genera is one of those ornithological puzzles that 
can only be satisfactorily solved when a careful series of 
anatomical studies has been completed. 
The earlier writers on Ornithology, of whom we may accept 
Brisson and Linneus as typical examples, attempted to diagnose 
the genera of birds. To the best of their ability they endeavoured 
to enumerate the characters which were sufficient to determine 
the genus, leaving out of the diagnosis other characters, which 
may be very interesting and very important, but are not 
absolutely necessary. Modern ornithologists belong to two 
schools: those belonging to the old school, than whom no better 
examples can be found than Yarrell, Newton, and Saunders, 
simply enumerate the so-called structural characters, leaving 
the reader to find out for himself, if he can, which of them are 
diagnostic. No great fault can be found with this mode of 
procedure, except perhaps that it may be regarded as an attempt 
to ‘“‘play for safety,’ which not unfrequently proves a great 
incentive to the use of strong language on the part of the 
bewildered but irascible student, who tries in vain to determine 
the genus of a strange bird. 
Dresser, in his ‘Birds of Europe,’ has adopted a most 
original course: he has simply catalogued the structural 
characters of the type of each genus, without pointing out 
which of them are common to all the species of the genus, and 
which of them are exceptional; and, of the former, without a 
hint as to whether they are common to allied genera, or are 
diagnostic of the genus, the type of which he is describing. 
This treatment of the question can only be regarded either as a 
ZOOLOGIST.—APRIL, 1886. M 
