No. 448.] CLASSIFICA TION OF BIRDS. 



his contribution to the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of Lon- 

 don ior the year 1892, entitled "On the Classification of Birds," 

 (pp. 229-256). So far as I am at present aware, Cope's and 

 Gadovv's classifications of Aves are the only two of any impor- 

 tance that have been published since Sharpe gave us his brochure 

 cited above. If this be true, there has been no completed classi- 

 fication of this Class of Vertebrates published for over ten years. 

 There have, however, been a number of such schemes partly 

 completed and partly published, as for example the classification 

 of birds as set forth in Sharpe's Hand-List of Birds, now passing 

 through the press, and of which but one part remains to be issued. 

 This admirable and most useful work will contain one of the most 

 elaborate classifications of birds ever published. It is especially 

 valuable inasmuch as Sharpe belongs to that school of ornithol- 

 ogists which believes in employing all available characters in 

 classification, in ascertaining true aflfinities, to the end that the 

 classification shall be a natural one and express as far as possible 

 the real relationships of all existing families of birds, even to the 

 minor divisions of species and varieties. 



Within the past few years there have appeared some excellent 

 summaries of classifications ; for example, Ridgway's admirable 

 presentation of the matter in his Birds of North and Middle 

 America. " Nothing original is claimed for the classification 

 here given," says its author, " except as to the form in which it 

 is presented. It is simply the result of an elective process, the 

 evidently good of other systems being retained and the obviously 

 bad rejected, according to the author's ability to correctly inter- 

 pret the evidence " (p. 6). In this connection I desire also to 

 invite attention to the avian classification found in the Catalogue 

 of Osteological Specimens of the Mnsenm of the Royal College of 

 Snrgcons of England (Part III, Aves). This admirable piece of 

 work is by Sharpe, who states that "The system of Classi- 

 fication followed in the present work is mainly that proposed by 

 Henry Seebohm in his 'Classification of Birds,' and further 

 elaborated in this ' Birds of the Japanese Empire.' There are 

 some points in his system which I have slightly modified ; but 

 they are of minor importance when compared with the fact that 

 every group of birds, as diagnosed by Seebohm, possesses a 



