STUDIES OF THE MACEOCHIEES. 



351 



in point of size, with the corresponding bones and parts in PJia- 

 Icenoptilus NuttalU, those in Antrostoimis of course being the 

 larger. 



With a skeleton of the latter bird now before me, and 

 carefully reading over my descriptions of the limbs of Chordeiles 

 and PJiaJcpnoptilus, as I gave them in my first memoir on this 

 group, I find that there is nothing special to add to that account ; 

 all the essential characters of these parts being duly presented 

 for the American forms of Whip-poor-wills and Nightjars. 



There is one more statement I made there that seems, how- 

 ever, to demand correction ; for in describing the proximal 

 phalanx of the index digit of the manus I said of its expanded 

 portion in Phalcenoptilus, that of the two perforations which were 

 found in it in Chordeiles, they merged in the former bird " into 

 one large one." This is not so ; for upon a more extended exa- 

 mination I find that there are always two perforations in this part 

 of the bone in all the forms we have been considering. 



This is all I have to state in regard to the descriptive part 

 of the structure of the Caprimulgine birds of the United States. 

 Should it become necessary further on to fall back upon this 

 descriptive part, for the sake of comparison with the remaining 

 groups yet to be described, it will be done ; but, so far as I am 

 concerned, I am firmly convinced that, taken as a group, including 

 all other Whip-poor-wills and Nightjars, and such forms as JVt/c- 

 tihius, Psalurus, Steatornis, and Podargiis and others, they are 

 fully entitled to rank as an Order of birds, which I have elsewhere 

 designated as the Caprimulgi. 



Not having personally examined such forms as Podargus, 

 ^gotlieles, Nyctidromus*, Batrachostomus, and others, I am 

 not fully prepared to offer an opinion as to the families and 

 other divisions of such an Order, nor to state definitely to which 

 other groups the Caprimulgi are most nearly related ; but I can 

 hardly agree with Prof. Huxley, who asserts that " the Capri- 

 mulgidae come near Trogon^ and more remotely approach Po- 

 dargus and the Owls" (P. Z. S. 18G7) ; for believing, as I do, 

 that Podargus belongs to the Order, I am also inclined to the 

 opinion that we shall find that, through Steatornis and Podargus, 



* I have since examined skeletons of Nyctid^-omtis alhicollis, var. Merrilli 

 sent me by my collectors in Texas. — E. W S. 



