ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF CERTAIN GROUPS 

 OF BIRDS. 



(Supersuborders : Archornithiformes ; Drom^ognath^ 

 Odontoholce.) 



. SHUFELDT. 



For a number of years I have paid considerable attention to 

 the anatomy of birds, and especially to the osteology of the 

 class. This has been done chiefly with the view of enabling 

 me sometime to draw up a provisional scheme of classification 

 of this group of the Vertebrata. This is now well on its way 

 toward completion, but before finishing it I prefer to await 

 the appearance of other taxonomical schemes by other authors, 

 either now in press or coming out in parts, as well as the pub- 

 lication of certain memoirs of my own on the same subject. 

 My work on the osteology of birds came to assume such formi- 

 dable proportions that I failed to find a publisher either in this 

 country or Europe who would undertake the publication of it. 

 Therefore I was compelled to issue it in the form of separate 

 memoirs, or monographs, many of which have already appeared, 

 while eight others have been accepted and will be issued in 

 due course. 



In the present contribution I offer the researches I have 

 made in the osteology of the Archasopteridae, the Ornithurae, 

 or ostrich forms, and the Odontoholcae. In doing this I have 

 gone most carefully over all the literature on the subject that 

 was available to me, and have examined a number of the 

 skeletons of the birds contained in these groups, by far the 

 larger share of which belonged to the department of compara- 

 tive anatomy of the United States National Museum, to which 

 institution I am especially indebted for the facilities it extended 



