510 PROFESSOR W. K. PARKER ON THE 
3. Rhinochetide. 
4. Eurypygide. 
5. Thinocoride. 
6. Rallide. 
The four groups from 2 to 5, inclusive, are truly Notog@an, the territory of ancient types, 
and for the most part only exist as a single genus or even species. 
ConcLupiInG REMARKS. 
Believing, as I do, that all safe and true classification of organic types must be based 
upon a knowledge of their development, I have availed myself of every opportunity for 
research of this kind, in this class above all other. 
Confessedly imperfect, and dealing with but a tract of the skeletal structures, I yet 
hope to find that these papers may be of dmmediate use to the ornithologist. 
Labouring not at ornithology proper, and often painfully ignorant of the labours of 
the great leaders in that branch of science, I unconsciously use their terms, at times, 
in a sense different from that which they intend these terms to have. 
Thus the Plover (Pluvialis) yields me the adjective Pluvialine; but whilst I use it 
often in a very general sense as giving expression to a form having a very wide distribu- 
tion in the class, the ornithologist is thinking of the Plovers proper, only of a restricted 
group; he fits it accurately to his Charadrian norma. 
I find that, already, the term Hyithognathe is received as the equivalent of Coraco- 
morphe ; and so, because I assert that Nature has given Zwrniv and Thinocorus an 
imperfectly Agithognathous palate, I am accused of placing these birds with the Pas- 
serines. What is stated is this—namely, that these low generalized birds have taken on 
the earlier metamorphic changes by which in much more specialized types, by further 
metamorphosis, we obtain the true Passerine palate. 
Exposing myself still further to criticism, I also show that the raw material for 
the Agithognathous face, in the highest types, exists in a much lower bird, namely 
the Rhea, and that, still lower down, Reptiles, Amphibia, and various orders of Fishes 
possess the “homologues” of those morphological elements that become “as clay in 
the hands of the potter” when a singing-bird’s face has to be developed. 
Nevertheless, supposing that the framework of modern ornithology is made to shake 
when we find those explosive materials, generalized types, lying below our neat and snug 
“families,” shall we on that account surcease from such research? I think not. 
