190 MR. W. K. PARKER ON THE OSTEOLOGY 



these genera of the toes of the Hyrax, and seem fitted for rocky desert places, and for 

 dry sandy plateaux. There is a feeble, half-grown, unfinished look about the tarsus of 

 both the Syrrhaptes and the Hemipodius (PI. XXXV. fig. .5) that reminds me strongly 

 of the tiny shank-bone of the Swift [Cypselus apus). The sprawling outturned toes 

 (a condition not absent from Lagopus) are very interesting to the philosophical zoologist, 

 as it is the retention of a strong " reptilian" character. 



f. The Second Inosculant Subfamily of the "Gallince," viz. the " Pteroclince." 

 Example 1 : Pallas's Sandgrouse (Syrrhaptes paradoxus). 



The trivial name paradoxus is certainly the best that could have been given to 

 Pallas's Sandgrouse, a most unlooked-for kind of creature, full of apparent contradic- 

 tions, and having in itself the essence, so to speak, of several types of birds. If I felt 

 myself free to adopt the views of Mr. Darwin, no difficulty would exist, and no surprise 

 be occasioned in my mind, by the revelations contained in this one chapter of zoology. 

 Not being convinced at present of the truth of these well-known views, I am under the 

 necessity of working on at these problems with a mind full rather of childish wonder 

 than of philosophical calmness and satisfaction, and more in the state of one who is 

 feeling after a great principle, if haply he may find it, than in that of some clear thinker 

 who looks abroad from the great stand-point of an assured and established law. In the 

 present paper I am constrained to work somewhat descensively at the study of ornithic 

 types, and, as it were, to grope my way downwards from birds full of fine qualities 

 and accomplishments, to the huge cyclopean Ostrich, of which a most subhme ancient 

 naturalist says, with great truth and beauty, 



" God hath deprived her of wisdom, neither hath He imparted to her understanding." 



When I first examined the skull of the Syrrhaptes, it appeared certain to me that 

 I was passing downwards from the " Gallinse " to the " Struthionidse ;" and although I 

 have for three years more worked continually at the study of type-characters, I have not 

 been led to change my opinion in the least. Nevertheless the Syrrhaptes is most 

 intimately related to the true gallinaceous Grouse ; but it is related in such a way and 

 manner as to have its gallinaceous characters blended with those of the Ground- 

 pigeons {Didus, Goura, Chamceopelia), of the Hemipodii, and of the substruthious 

 Tinamous. To assist my own imagination in grouping the members of the bird-class, 

 I compare it as a whole to a low spreading tree " with a shadowing shroud," and having 

 "his top among the thick boughs." Such a tree will have his "little plants" (its 

 phytons) very small and extremely numerous amongst the closely interwoven mass of 

 its twigs ; but where the twigs culminate in open space and end upwards and outwards, 

 there will be a much fuller expansion of the spreading leaf-form. Yet down amongst 

 the grass, at the very roots of our imaginary tree, we shall find the most inordinate 

 growth of leafy individuals. Essentially, the base of the trunk contains all the rest ; 

 and, essentially, at each bi- or trifurcation we have all that is above that particular 



