1893.] Classification of the Longipennes. 233 
ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE LONGIPENNES. 
By R. W. SHUFELDT. 
Few groups of birds there are that have received a greater 
amount of attention at the hands of comparative morpholo- 
gists than the one I here consider as the Longipennes. 
Considered apart from related ones, the suborder is fairly 
well circumscribed, and structurally, very surely a most homo- 
geneous collection of bird-forms. Itis abundantly represented 
in the United States avifauna, and here, as in nearly all other 
parts of the world, consists chiefly of the Gulls and Terns, the 
Skuas and Jaegers, and the Black Skimmer of the family 
Rhynchopidæ. We have the Skuas represented by but one 
species, Megdlestris skua; and there are three Jaegers of the 
genus Stercorarius. There are upward of thirty Gulls referred 
to the genera Gavia, Rissa, Larus (20 species), Rhodostethia, 
and Xema, and about seventeen Terns, which are referred to 
the four genera Gelochelidon, Sterna (13 species), Hydrochelidon, 
and Anous. 
Among the earlier classifiers of the Laridæ, we find P. Bruch 
and C. L. Bonaparte, the former being the author, of two 
celebrated papers', and the latter of another which appeared 
between the times of their publication’. The confusing and 
1Bruch, P., Monographische Uebersicht der Gattung Larus Lin. J. f. O., i, 18538, 
Ibid. Revie oe Gattung Larus Lin. J. f. O., iii, 1855, pp. 273-293, pll. IV, V. 
2Ronaparte, C. L., Notes sur les Larides. Naumannia, IV, 1854, pp. 209-219. 
Of these two exploits Coues says in his Ornithological Bibliography, “It may be 
remarked, in fine, of this article [ Bonaparte’s], that it is worse than worthless, being 
pernicious. It is ostensibly a review of Bruch’s paper of 1853 [supra]; this being 
itself a very incompetent performance, confusion is here worse confounded by Bona- 
parte’s criticisms and ‘‘rectifications.”” It seems to have had, among other undesira- 
ble results, the effect of setting Bruch at the babiaees nen, as cobra age » zy garis 
paper of 1855, [above cited]. The two auth 
as can be found in ornithology; woe to the confiding student who trusts either of 
themn—Crede — ! Bruch and Bonaparte are “ Scylla and Charybdis of Gull 
literature.” (p. 1001.) 
