ON THE OSTEOLOGY AND SYSTEMATIC 
POSITION OF THE SCREAMERS 
(PALAMEDEA: CHAUNA). 
R. W. SHUFELDT. 
ProFEssor William Kitchen Parker was the first to sus- 
pect that those remarkable birds known as the screamers might 
in some way be related to the Anseres, and as long ago as 
1863 he undertook to point out in his excellent paper on the 
subject in the Proceedings of the Zovlogical Society of London 
(pp. 511-518) what the relationships between the two groups 
consisted in. A few years later, however, Huxley included 
them among his Chenomorphz (of. cit., 1867, pp. 436-460). 
Naturally such authorities carried great weight for some time, 
but when Garrod came to investigate the structure of Chauna 
derbiana he quickly arrived at the conclusion that the Palame- 
deidee were surely no geese, whatever the affinity might be 
between the two groups (P. Z. S., 1876, pp. 189-200). Dr. 
Sclater in 1880 created a distinct order for them (Palame- 
deze), still keeping them, however, in the neighborhood of the 
Anseres. Dr. Stejneger includes them with the Chenomor- 
phe as a super-family (Anhimoidez), as I have elsewhere 
pointed out, while Dr. Fiirbringer makes an intermediate sub- 
order for them standing between the anserine birds and the 
family JEpyornithida. Mr. Seebohm kept the flamingoes, 
Anseres, and the Palamedez as suborders in the order Lamel- 
lirostres ; and Sharpe places only the Anseres and the scream- 
ers in an order Anseriformes. Professor Beddard (P. Z. S., 
1894) makes comparisons between Palamedea and Chauna, but 
expresses no decided opinion there as to the systematic posi- 
tion of the group. 
Of all the accounts I have read of the osteology and tax- 
onomy of the screamers, none come so near to what I consider 
to be the truth in the case as does the above-cited contribution 
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