234 The American Naturalist. [Mareh, 
misleading statments made in these three memoirs were 
subsequently to a large extent, eradicated by the excellent 
labors of Coues which appeared a few years after them,— 
although Coues, as he himself admits, suffered from the 
reliance he placed in their observations.’ 
But we are more interested in those works wherein the 
taxonomy of the Longipennes is based largely upon the struc- 
ture of the various species, and this Dr. Coues gave us later in 
his “ Birds of the Northwest,” a very solid contribution to the 
subject. Here a very thorough study was made of the 
Gulls, Terns, Skimmers and others. His final classification, 
however, appeared ten years later, or in 1884° and stood thus: 
SUB FAMILIES, 
[arin 
ORDER. SUB-ORDER. FAMILY. } La 
Longipennes. Gavie. Laride. | Sternin 
[R Rhynichopitee. 
Other Laridists have also ably treated the group and we 
can here but refer the student to the works of Nitzsch, Huxley, 
Schlegel, Blasius, Saunders, and Sclater and Salvin, bringing 
us dows to the year 1880. Of these Huxley’s work is deserving 
of especial mention f and he upon certain structural characters 
placed the Gulls and their allies in his group “ Cecomorphe,” 
remarking that “ This group contains, the Laridæ (Longipennes 
Nitzsch), the Procellariidæ, the Colymbide, and the Alcidx.” 
(p. 458). As a knowledge of the morphology of a number of 
these families became extended, this classification has been 
very much modified and altered. Forinstance, Alfred Newton 
in the 9th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica under the 
article GuLL (v. x1, p. 274) says, “The Family Laride is 
composed of two chief groups, Larinæ and Sternine——the Gulls 
Coues, E., Revision of the Gulls (Larine) of North America; based upon 
specimens in the Mus of the Smithsonian Institution. Proc. Acad. Nat. Sct. 
Phila., XIV, 1862, pp. “291-812 Also a review of the sates ncaa of North 
America. Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila. XIV, 1862, pp. 535-559. 
*Coues, E., Monograph of the North American Laridz, 1874, pp. 587-715. 
*Coues, E., Key to North American Birds, 1884, p. 732. 
®Huxley, Thomas H., On the Classification of Birds; and on the Taxonomic 
Value of the Modifications of certain of the Cranial Bones observable in that Class- 
P. Z. S. 1867, pp. 415-472. 
