882 



DE. K. W. SHUFELDt's MORPHOLOaiCAL 



with the relatively large intestine, with, too, its bulbous cloaca, I 

 have represented in figure 34. 



Swifts possess a stomach, both in position and general form, 

 very much like the Swallows, and, as we now know, nothing 

 at all like the Trochili. True, neither Cypseli nor Trochili pos- 

 sess intestinal cceoa ; but does this mean anything when no other 

 two organs in the bodies of these birds have any resemblance to 

 each other whatever, so far as affinity is concerned ? Look at 

 them in the figures ; are there many birds in the Class more 

 widely separated in this respect than these Swifts and Humming- 

 birds ? 



Upon laying open the stomach of a specimen of Micropus 

 melanoleucus, I found it packed full of insects ; but, what is more 

 im23ortant, anatomically speaking, I discovered it to be lined 

 with a tough, corneous, inner coat, which was lifted out entire, 

 by simply using very gentle traction, with a pair of dissecting- 

 forceps. The stomach of the Humming-bird was also full of the 

 tiniest Coleoptera imaginable, which were very interesting to 

 study under a two-inch objective attached to my Beck's binocular 

 microscope, and I wondered as I did so whether all these tiny 

 New-Mexican beetles were known to science. 

 - Apart from the fact, then, that Cypseli and Trochili agree in 

 certain numerical and negative characters (" a single carotid, 

 and no cseca," dangerous facts sometimes !), these birds are by 

 no means related, so far as the organs we have just been inves- 

 tigating are concerned. 



Having now passed in review the characters of a Passerine 

 bird {Ampelis cedrormi), and gone very carefully over the 

 osteology of certain Trogons, and even yet more thoroughly 

 over the structure of many Caprimulgi, Swallows, Swifts, and 

 Humming-birds, I believe, as my views have been slowly for- 

 mulating during my painstaking dissections, that I am now in 

 a position to reconsider what I have already published upon 

 the classification of the Maceochiees, as well as to present the 

 conclusions at which I have now arrived, aided as I have been 

 by all this recent research. Before doing this, however, I desire 

 to present in a few paragraphs the results of my investigations 

 upon two specimens of T. Calliope, nestlings only a day or two 

 old, and for which I am indebted to the generosity of Mr. F. 

 Stephens, of San Bernardino, California, who sent them to 

 me to be used in the present connection. One of these little 

 fellows 1 drew, life-size, and it will be found figured on PI. XXIII. 



