1889.] MR. W. K. PARKER ON STEATORNIS CARIPENSIS. 185 



such as Eurystomus and Podargus ; not the inhabitants of its own 

 region. 



The same thing is to be seen in several other types : Dicholophus, a 

 Crane-hke bird of prey, represents the Ethiopian Secretary-bird ; the 

 Boatbill (Cawcr07«a), the great Bateiiiceps of the Soudan ; and even 

 the Tinanious, which are so closely related to the Ratitae, look more 

 towards Apteryx than towards Rhea. These, however, are a few facts 

 which are mere samples of a very large number, and the organic 

 types generally that lie beyond " Wallace's Line " in the East, are 

 to be compared with those that are from beyond the Isthmus of 

 Panama in the West. 



As to the group to which Steatornis belongs, I think that at 

 present the best thing to do is to drop some of Professor Huxley's 

 smaller group-terms, and to retain these for larger gatherings of 

 birds. 



If his " Cypselomorphse," for instance, are allowed to fall back 

 into the great and most important group of the Coccygomorphae we 

 shall get over many difficulties and have a suborder comparable to 

 the Coracomorphae. 



These two groups, so constituted as to take in, in the latter, all 

 the ^githognathse except the Swifts, and the former be made to 

 hold withiu one ideal boundary-line all the non-passerine arboreal 

 " Altrices " (except the Pigeons and Raptorial birds), all the " Tenui- 

 rostres," " Fissirostres," " Syndactyli," and " Zygodactyli " of Cu- 

 vier, — then the likeness or the unlikeness of the two groups will shine 

 out clearly. 



In the Coracomorphae we have 6000 species, that, by their most 

 amazing uniformity, suggest to the Evolutionist one common parent- 

 age, and in that group only a small percentage of types is abnormal. 

 In some characters, both of the skeleton and of the soft parts, there 

 is an absolute uniformity. I know of no case in which the caeca coli 

 are absent ; and from the Corvidae proper to the Pteroptochidae, 

 the most variable part of the skeleton — the manus and pes — the 

 distal part of both fore and hind limbs, are uniform throughout. 

 The carpo-metacarpus has, in every skeleton I have seen, a bony 

 bridge over the proximal part of the interosseous space formed by 

 ankylosis of an ossified cartilaginous plate, which is in reality an 

 intercalary metacarpal. Also in none, except the Bank-Swallow, 

 have I found a developed ungual phalanx to the 1st or 2nd digits; 

 they almost always abort or suppress the 2nd phalanx of the 1st, 

 and the 3rd phalanx of the 2nd digit. 



In the leg, the tarso-metatarsus always, so far as I have seen, has 

 Jive tendon-canals behind its head. There is no finished canal here 

 either in Steatornis or in Cypselus ; in the Common Fowl there is 

 one passage — a common state of things. 



Then, as I have said, in the skull there is always that peculiar 

 modification of the Schizognathons palate which Professor Huxley 

 calls the ^Egithognathous type. 



Also, except in rare cases, the basiplerygoids are nearly sup- 

 pressed ; only in a few cases are they seen even as thin prickles, in 



