228 



NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Finally, Parker has said in his Osteology of the Gallinaceous 

 Birds and Tinamous: 



It may be said that the " Tetraoninae " differ from the " Phasia- 

 ninae," just as the ducks differ from the geese — the legs are 

 shorter, and the eardrum is far more perfectly developed ; whilst, 

 as the grouse lean towards the Sand grouse, so the ducks — the 

 marine genera — lean towards the grebes and the cormorants. 



The curassows are evidently true and normal connecting links 

 between the fowls and the Palamedeas. 



The Talegalla and its allies are not only related to the curassows 

 and Palamedeas, but also to the wingless rails, and through them 

 to the kagu (Rhinochetus). 



The Hemipodii have the quails above them, the tinamous below, 

 the smaller plovers on one side, and the Ground pigeons on the 

 other. 



The Sand grouse are borderers, and although lower than the 

 grouse in many respects, being but little removed from the stru- 

 thious type, yet are related, and that intimately, to the plovers and 

 the pigeons. 



The tinamous are perhaps the most instructive of all these mixed 

 forms ; for although essentially struthious, yet they are structurally 

 closely related to the Dendrortyx (and through it to the fowl), to 

 the Hemipodius, the Syrrhaptes. the rails, and the plovers. Fin- 

 all}', it has reappearing in it skull structural characters only found 

 again in such Reptilia as the blindworms and the skinks. That 

 most important bone, the " os quadratum," is thoroughly reptilian in 

 the tinamous (as in the ostriches), almost single-headed in the 

 fowls and grouse, and well nigh typically ornithic in the mound- 

 makers, curassows, hemipods, and Sand grouse. 



The present writer does not see quite as close an affinity between 

 the Sand grouse and the struthious types, nor even the tinamous 

 and the struthious types as Parker seems to acknowledge for them. 

 In other particulars the summing up of the relationships of the 

 Gallinae as given by the eminent authority just quoted, is most 

 instructive. 



ADDENDA 



As I have already remarked in several places in the present 

 treatise, the descriptions of the several species of the United States 

 Gallinae described in it should be compared with the illustrations 

 and figures given on the plates to my former memoir on the " Oste- 

 ology of the North American Tetraonidae." 1 In it will be found 



1 Twelfth Annual Report of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of 

 the Territories: A Report of Progress of the Exploration in Wyoming and Idaho for 

 the Year 1S7S [In two parts, part 1 1. by F. V. Hayden, United States Geologist, pages 

 6S3-7i8, plates 5-13. figures 47-91. Washington. Government l'rinting Office. 1883. 



