GALLINULOIDES WYOMINGENSIS EASTMAN 633 



The generic name Gallinuloides is a very misleading one as 

 applied to the present bird, and matters have not been improved 

 by the creation of a family Gallinuloididae.^ 



This bird, as I have remarked above, was a true grouse; but 

 whether it can be placed in any existing genus of our North Ameri- 

 can Tetraonidae is another matter. It belongs in the near neighbor- 

 hood of Lagopus and Bonasa, and probably in a genus of its own. 

 For such a genus, did the "Canons of Zoological Nomenclature" 

 (Canon XXXI) admit of it, I would suggest the name of Palaeo- 

 honasa. And if at any time in the future such changes are made, 

 under additional rules to meet cases of the kind, this extinct species 

 should then be known as Palaeohonasa wyomingensis.^ 



^ Frederic A. Lucas, No. 4, " Characters and Relations of Gallinuloides wyomingen- 

 sis Eastman, a Fossil Gallinaceous Bird from the Green River Shales of Wyoming," 

 Btdl. Mus. Comp. Zool. at Harvard Coll., XXXVI (1900-1901), 79-84. Illustrated. 



The author of this well-known paper says of the fossil bird here being considered 

 that "its galliform nature is obvious at a glance"; and while he states that it was a 

 "bird of about the size of a ruffed grouse" (which is correct), he falls into the error of 

 stating that "the majority of its structural resemblances are with the curassows and 

 with the genus Ortalis amongst those birds," and the still more remarkable error in 

 the statement that "the bird presents no points of affinity with any of the American 

 grouse, still less with any of the Odontophorinae." 



The writer is very careful to make no reference whatever to the fact that this 

 fossil bird is in no way related to the gallinules; nor does he make any effort (through 

 change of name) to disabuse the mind of the palaeontologists of the incorrectness of 

 that reference. When any animal has been incorrectly classified, it is a distinct 

 advantage to science to rename it, as it is relegated to the group to which it in reality 

 belongs. Moreover, Lucas emphasizes the error made in the original reference by 

 suggesting the creation of the family Gallinuloididae , which has, unfortunately, already 

 passed into palaeornithological nomenclature (A.O.U. Check-List of North American 

 Birds, ed. 1910, p. 388, etc.). 



It may be said here that I figure (natural size) the trunk skeleton of a specimen 

 of Ortalis macalli in my Osteology of Birds, and give an account of the skeleton of this 

 species (p. 240, PI. 4, Fig. 21). As compared with the fossil, especial attention is 

 invited to the broad ribs, short and wide external xiphoidal processes of the sternum, 

 and the small hypocleidium of the os furcula in Ortalis. 



2 Gen. name = Gr. iroXaibs, ancient, and Sp. name, Gr. ^bvaaos, a wild bull. Bonasa 

 was so named on account of the "drimiming" practised by the bird at certain times, 

 which has been considered by some to sound like the bellowing of a bull; in other 

 words, an ancient form of Bonasa. As I have elsewhere shown, Bonasa, of all our 

 North American grouse, comes nearest to the quails and partridges, and it is quite 

 likely that this extinct species possessed some osteological characters in its skeleton 

 which would indicate such an affinity still more plainly. 



