STUDIES OF THE MACROCHIRES. 
351 
in point of size, with the corresponding bones and parts in Pha- 
Icenogtilus Nutt alii, those in Antrostomus of course being the 
larger. 
With a skeleton of the latter bird now before me, and 
carefully reading over my descriptions of the limbs of Chordeiles 
and Phalcenojytilus, as I gave them in my first memoir on this 
group, I find that there is nothing special to add to that account ; 
all the essential characters of these parts being duly presented 
for the American forms of Whip-poor-wills and Nightjars. 
There is one more statement I made there that seems, how- 
ever, to demand correction ; for in describing the proximal 
phalanx of the index digit of the manus 1 said of its expanded 
portion in Plialcenoptilus, that of the two perforations which were 
found in it in Chordeiles, they merged in the former bird “into 
one large one.” This is not so ; for upon a more extended exa- 
mination I find that there are always two perforations in this part 
of the bone in all the forms we have been considering. 
This is all I have to state in regard to the descriptive part 
of the structure of the Caprimulgine birds of the United States. 
Should it become, necessary further on to fall back upon this 
descriptive part, for the sake of comparison with the remaining 
groups yet to be described, it will be done ; but, so far as I am 
concerned, I am firmly convinced that, taken as a group, including 
all other Whip-poor-wills and Nightjars, and such forms as Nyc- 
tihius, Psalurus , Steatornis, and Podargus and others, they are 
fully entitled to rank as an Order of birds, which I have elsewhere 
designated as the Caprihulgi. 
Not having personally examined such forms as Podargus , 
NJgotheles, Nyctidromus *, Batrachostomus, and others, I am 
not fully prepared to offer an opinion as to the families and 
other divisions of such an Order, nor to state definitely to which 
other groups the Caprimulgi are most nearly related ; but I can 
hardly agree with Prof. Huxley, who asserts that “ the Capri- 
mulgidse come near Trogon , and more remotely approach Po- 
dargus and the Owls” (P. Z. S. 1867); for believing, as I do, 
that Podarqus belongs to the Order, I am also inclined to the 
opinion that w r e shall find that, through Steatornis and Podargus , 
* I have since examined skeletons of Nyctidromus albicollis, var. Merrilli 
sent me by my collectors in Texas. — E. W S. 
