S40 THE AMER/C- 



[Vol. XXXVIII. 



November, 1862, Professor Wm. Kitchen Parker gives us one 

 of the earhest methods of setting forth in print the relation- 

 ships of a number of birds treated of in the work named. 

 These had to do with genera and not with famihes, and he 

 conveyed his ideas on their relationships in two ways. One 

 of these consisted in a method of what might be termed 

 grouping, and the other the columnar method, or as it is some- 

 times called, the "linear," for the fact that the genera, or fami- 

 lies, or the higher groups are printed in a linear sequence fol- 

 lowing in an order determined by what is supposed to be their 

 relationships. Thus Parker said in the above quoted memoir on 

 page 235, "I will first show, in two parallel columns, how both 

 the Fowls and the Rails run insensibly through certain leading 

 genera into the lowest (reptilian) types of diving-birds." 



Notornis Gallus 

 Brachypteryx Crax 

 Ocydromus Talegalla 

 '^"bonyx Palemedea 

 Crex 

 Rallus 

 Gallinula 



Porphyris Xnal 



Plectropte; 



Fuligula 

 Harelda 



P"ulica 

 Podilymbus 



P^^i^^PS Biziura 

 , ^^^^^ Merganser 

 Aptenodytes Phalacrocorax Colymbus Ale 



^ni. metnod has its advantages, also its many disadvantages, 

 and Parker felt the weight of some of these when he placed at 

 the foot of the first column Aptenodytes aside from but near to 

 I halacrocorax, and in the second column Colymbus aside from 

 ica. bo on the very next page or two (236, 237) he resorts 

 to he groupmg method and uses it in the case of Pluvialis, 

 Ta egalla, Hemipodius, Syrrhaptes, and Tinamus. This plan is 

 well shown in the case of the last named genus,- thus : 



