Birds. 2797 



Physiological Classification of Birds. — I perceive in the last number of the 

 5 Zoologist' (Zool. 2780) an abstract of an interesting paper, called ' First Thoughts 

 on a Physiological Arrangement of Birds, by Mr. Newman,' and which was read 

 to the Zoological Society, a month ago. As ornithologists, like other good people, do 

 not read all that has been published, I take the liberty of referring your readers to my 

 ' Essay on the Classification of Birds,' published in the July number, 1846, of Prof. 

 Jameson's ' Edinbro' New Philosophical Journal,' at pp. 50 — 72, which I endeavoured 

 to arrange principally on physiological characters ; consequently Mr. Newman's me- 

 moir can hardly be termed in a strict sense — " first thoughts." Now, I may observe, 

 that the two " grand divisions " proposed by Mr. Newman, are virtually the same as 

 my two sub-classes, see Jameson's Edinbro' Phil. Journ. p. 55 and p. 63, where they 

 are defined. I had at first divided the class Birds into blind-born and seeing-born, 

 but I soon found that this arrangement was not consistent with other important phy- 

 siological characters, and that some groups, as pelicans, &c, must consequently be se- 

 parated from their true and natural position near the divers, &c, and the herons from 

 near the snipes, &c. Mr. Newman's terms Hesthogenous and Gymnogenous have 

 evidently been originated from the well known botanical ones — Endogenous and 

 Exogenous : and, indeed, the very word Gymnogenous, or Gymnogens, has been al- 

 ready preoccupied by Dr. Lindley, see his 'Vegetable Kingdom,' (2 edit. p. 221, &c.) 

 The first of Mr. Newman's terms is clearly incorrect, i.e., Hesthogenous, — which 

 being compounded of Ecr8o$ — a garment or clothing, — is Esthus, not Hesthus, and it 

 ought strictly to be from the genitive case Etrfeo?, and therefore the word should 

 be Estheogenous. Moreover, I may be allowed to remark, why should Mr. Newman 

 use Cuvier's French words, Plongeurs, Grimpeurs, &c. instead of Latin ones ? The 

 Columbidse (at least most of them) are born blind, but not altogether naked, having a 

 thin covering of hair-like down. And to me it appears now, as it did several years ago, 

 that the two sub-classes cannot with sufficient scientific exactness be entitled Clothed- 

 born (Estheogenous), and Naked-born (Gymnogenous) ; or, Seeing-born (Visinatae), 

 and Blind-born (Caecinatae) ; but they can, with more accurate physiological charac- 

 ters taken from the feet, be styled, as I have already selected — Aves Inconstricti- 

 pedes — birds with inconstrictile feet; and Aves Constrictipedes — birds having 

 constrictile, or grasping feet : — and these two sub-classes will be found to comprise the 

 " Clothed and Seeing-born," and the " Naked and Blind-born" birds, or chicks, in a 

 sufficiently regular or normal method — the aberrant forms constituting the exceptions. 

 — John Hogg; Norton House, Stockton-on-Tees, April 12, 1850. 



[The readers of the ' Zoologist' will have a better opportunity of judging of the 

 similarity of Mr. Hogg's primary divisions or sub-classes and my own, if that 

 gentleman will recapitulate in these pages the definitions he has employed to distin- 

 guish them, and at the same time say which of my fourteen sub-divisions he has ar- 

 ranged under each of his primary divisions. I am not tenacious of my derivations : 

 my modicum of school Greek is well nigh forgotten ; but I thought hesthesis was 

 Greek for vestitus, or clothed, and gumnos for nudus, or naked. Is it otherwise ? — 

 E. Newman]. 



Occurrence of the Kite (Falco Milvus) at Kingsbury— On Wednesday, the 3rd inst., 

 as I was standing in the village (Kingsbury) talking to a friend, a fine specimen passed 

 over our heads within twenty yards : it is the only one I ever saw in this neighbour- 

 hood. — F. Bond ; Kingsbury, April 9, 1850. 



VIII Y 



