922 The American Naturalist. [October 
vides his work into four portions, treating respectively of the cephahc, 
the cervical, the thoracic, and the abdominal nerves, and his work in 
each of these departments comprises a historic resume, the structure to 
be found in the domestic duck, and a comparison of that of the latter 
with that of other birds. His conclusions are that it is at the level of 
the thorax that the sympathetic receives most nervous fibres from the 
spinal cord ; that above the thorax there is a single sympathetic trunk, 
with numerous ganglia terminating in the superior cervical ganglion, 
while below the thoracic region the sympathetic consists of a single 
nervous thread, bifurcating only when it encounters an obstacle ; some 
branches.put this part in relation with the spinal cord. The arrange- 
ment is analogous to that which obtains in reptiles. 
Dr. R. W. Shufeldt concludes from a study of the skulls of a large 
series of forms that the farnilies of Passerine birds should be arranged 
as follows : Tyrannidse, Laniidae, Ampelid^, Hirundinidae, Alaudidae, 
Certhiidae, Viveonidse, Motacillidae, Sylviidae, Coerebidse, Mniotiltidse, 
Cenclidoe, Troglodytidfe, Turdidae, Paridae, Tanagridse, Fringillids, 
Icteridae, Sturnidae, Corvidae, the latter being placed at the top of the 
scale largely upon the extremely uncertain grounds of psychology. 
Dr. Shufeldt has also described the pterytography of the burrowing 
owl, Ipeotyti, and contributed some other facts regarding the same 
animal. Both papers are in \h^ Journal of Morphology (Vol. III). 
Miss Julia B. Piatt has been studying the primitive metamerism in 
the chick. Her first problem was the solution of, Which is the first 
protovertebra to be formed ? and she concludes that the first incision 
separates the second from the third protovertebra, the second incision 
completes the third muscle plate, and that later there is found in ad- 
vance of the first incision one complete protovertebra and a second 
partial one. She also has studied the primitive segmentation of the 
brain, where she differs somewhat from other observers. In the chick, 
according to her observations, there are seven neuromeres found in 
front of the first protovertebra, and from the //-.Y of these are devel- 
oped Pros-thalam and Mesencenhalon : tlie ^eronJ <rives rise to the 
points made upon the origin of the nerves, especially the fifth, and 
Miss Piatt is inclined to regard the neuromeres of the medulla as 
homologous with those of the rest of the cord. 
Fhilosophi- 
tracing out 
