512 MR. W. K. PARKER ON PALAMEDEA. [DcC. 8, 



and the second is when the aberrant characters are only reptilian, 

 and for the most part lacertian*. 



Now it is with lacertian characters, rather than with what we find 

 in the Crocodile and the Chelonian, that we have to deal in such birds 

 as the Palaniedea and other mixed forms which are not far from it in 

 actual nature, but are striving, as it were, to attain to the full typical- 

 ness of other groups than that to which the Palamedea really belongs. 



The discovery of such a marvellous creature as Von Meyer's Ar- 

 chceopteryx must of necessity give the scientific mind a thirsty long- 

 ing to know more of the relations, and of the true causes of the rela- 

 tions, of these mid vertebrates, the reptiles and birds, — cold-blooded, 

 scaly, slow, and often loathsome on one hand ; on the other warm, 

 intensely active, and endued with the highest locomotive powers, and 

 beautiful beyond the power of words to express. 



There are two very beautiful groups of birds, rich in species, with 

 very clearly defined characters, both standing at about the same 

 "ornithic" height above the Ostriches, and in a very similar contiguity 

 to the Lizards: these are the true "Gallinse" and the true "Ana- 

 tinae." In the latter family we have all the birds from the Spur- 

 winged Goose {Plectropterus) to the Goosander, inclusive ; in the 

 former, the " Phasianinaj" and the "Tetraoninse" — the typical and 

 subtypical Fowls. The Flamingo is truly lamellirostral ; but its 

 anatine characters are confused and mixed up with those that are 

 derived from the Ibis and the Crane. Again, in the Fowls, we have 

 carefully to keep the " Cracinse," the " Hemipodiinse," the " Mega- 

 podiinse," and the " Pteroclinse " in separate circles, because the 

 woof of their nature is one thing, and the ivarp another ; they are not 

 zoologically pure, not wholly Gallinaceous. The parts first formed 

 in the embryonic skull — those which are most central, and least and 

 most slowly affected by the causes that fit each creature for its place 

 and work in nature — these are strangely alike in both the " Sifters " 

 and the "Scrapers"; and for a long while this fact has been a 

 mystery and almost a paradox to me. I care very little for the webs 

 between the toes ; their absence or presence may suffice to separate 

 between genus and genus, but not between family and family, still 

 less between order and order. 



The water-birds may, however, be divided very easily into two 

 groups by the presence or absence of two very curious membranous 

 spaces appearing in the occipital plane. These fontatielles separate 

 the auditory from the superoccipital cartilage, — and are scarcely open 

 at all in the true "Ardeinse," the "Rallinse," the " Podicipinse," 

 and the "Pelecaninse "; nor do they appear in the Land and Tree 

 groups of birds. 



In the " Ibidinse," the " Lamellirostres," the Gruiue, Pluvialine, 

 and Tringine groups, they are large and persistent ; in the " Larinae" 

 they soon fill up with bone, and so they do in (Edicnemus, and ap- 

 parently in the Bustards. Now the great embryological distinctions 



* The skull of every bird known conforms, on the whole, not so much to the 

 crocodilian as to the lacertian type ; their horny jaw-sheaths, large symmetrical 

 sternum, and almost fixed ribs are chelonian in their nature. 



