MR. E. DEGEN ON ECDYSIS. 391 



different from any other bird examined in that the first xoing -feather molted is the 

 fourth primary, followed successively by the third, second, and first ^" *. 



This same rule the author seems to have verified on the hand of three specimens in 

 the same stage and coming from the same locality. But he continues : — " ffoiv the molt 

 proceeds ^ after the first primary is shed, I am unable to say, though the fifth ^ [our VI. ] 

 is probably the next to be renewed, followed by the others in regular order inward." 



It was my good fortune, when in Australia, to procure, as the first bird which I 

 collected for this purpose, a fine specimen of a Brown Kingfisher or Laughing Jackass 

 (Dacelo gigas) about the middle of the annual moult, so I am glad to be able to 

 supplement the information desired on the point. According to my observations, the 

 moult proceeds on the hand-portion — after having done so from the 7th outward — 

 by immediately starting with the innermost or primary I. In the specimen observed 

 by me this feather was nearly fully developed and further showed the second or next 

 innermost in full process of moult, and the third cast off, preparatory for the renewal 

 of this remex. Primary I., therefore, is the centre from which this section of the manus 

 begins to moult next. This section comprises metacarpo-digitals I., II., III., IV., V., 

 and VI. Although this section moults in arrear somewhat of the outer one, comprising 

 VII., VIII., IX., X. (and XI.), yet, apart from its inner position, from a morphological 

 point of view, it has to be considered as the first of the two. 



I have elsewhere alluded to this arrangement as being overshadowed by a later 

 principle in more specialized birds ; similar signs as those referred to here for the 

 remiges exist in some of the series of the coverts of the metacarpo-digital portiori, 

 and this is the same primitive principle as carried out more generally on the cubitus. 



Gerbe (23), on p. 290, I. c. (see also antea), was the first to point out a deviation 

 for the forearm, from the linear progress of the moult of flight-feathers on the hand- 

 portion ; he, however, confined himself to this statement merely : — " Elle se manifest a 

 la fois sur les deux points extremes du cubitus et prend deux directions qui teudent 

 I'une vers 1' autre." Beyond this he did not pursue their order of moult. 



This I shall deal with in the course of my remarks on " Groups." As the initial 

 diagrams A, B, and C show (Plate XXXVI. ), the first one of these groups in which 

 the moult sets in embraces cubital remiges VIII., IX., and X., which are renewed 

 in the order of these numbers — that is, in a proximad direction. 



Meanwhile the moult has set in also on the other extremity, beginning with cubital 

 remex I., and by assuming the same inward direction as the group previously mentioned. 

 This it does as far as the fourth quill, which forms the last one belonging to this group. 



' These italics are mine. 



* Wittmer Stone counts from the tip inwards, so that his, fourth is probably the sey«M</i (possibly the eighth 

 in an eleven-primaried bird), after our reckoning ; his third our eighth ; his second our ninth ; and his first is 

 consequently identical with our tenth, at any rate last and outermost. 



