310 PEOPESSOR W. K. PAEKEE ON THE 



3. Khinochetidae. 



4. Eurypygidse. 



5. Thinocoridse. 



6. Rallidae. 



The four groups from 2 to 5, inclusive, are truly NotogcBan, the territory of ancient types, 

 and for the most part only exist as a single genus or even species. 



Concluding Eemarks. 



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 immediate 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 (Phmalis) yields me the adjective Pluvialine ; but whilst 1 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 liis Charadrian norma. 



I find that, already, the term jEgithognathm is received as the equivalent of Coraco- 

 morphiv; and so, because I assert that Nature has given Turnix and Thinocorus an 

 imperfectly iEgithognathous 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 rati) material for 

 the Jigithognathous face, in the highest types, exists in a much lower bird, namely 

 the Bhea, and that, still lower down, Eeptiles, 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 ornithologj' 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. 



