206 
but in order to sift the somewhat intricate relationship of this 
bird, it would be necessary not only to compare it with the Rasores 
s. Gallime and with the Turnices s. Hemipodii, but also with 
interesting and outlying forms such as Thinocorus, Attagis, Mesites, 
and various other Limicoline and Ralline genera. Thinocorus, 
Attagis, and Mesites I have not yet been able to procure ; of 
Turnix I have only T. sykesi , in spirits, although several skeletons 
of other species, I cannot therefore make such comparisons as I 
would wish, — hence the scantiness of my communication. 
However it reveals something, namely that Pedionomus is 
closely allied to the Turnices, although not closely enough to in- 
clude it in that group, unless the limits and the definition of the 
group be considerably widened. Moreover, it connects the 
Turnices with the Rasores, not directly, but through a number of 
characters which indicate the common descent of both from some 
less differentiated and less specialised Ralline-Limicoline stock. 
How the various branches of our much searched for hypothetical 
tree converge and diverge is another question. Suffice it to hint 
at the possible advisability of a Rallo-Galline combination. Fuer- 
bringer, in his monumental work, Taf. xxix.a indicates such a 
combination as optional, but not so on pp. 1566 and 1567. 
1 do not know that anyone else has published a single line on 
the anatomy of Pedionomus. Garrod does not mention it at all. 
Fuerbringer, p. 1250 says only “the change of the Turnicidte into 
proper cursorial birds has secondarily (via Pedionomus) caused 
the loss of the hallux. 75 Forbes refers to it in his list of Tridac- 
tyle birds (Ibis 1882, p. 389) thus: “Turnicidse,(exc. Pedionomusy 
meaning that Pedionomus has four toes ; in another paper (Ibis, 
1882, p. 428) he enumerates it as the last of the eleven known 
species of Turnicidse. That Gray (Handlist of Birds, Yol. ii., p. 
271, gen. No. 2429, and Genera of Birds, Yol. iii., p. 511, pL 131, 
fig. 3) referred Pedionomus to his Turnicinse, speaks well either 
for his sagacity or for the occasional value of some of the so-called 
external characters, but he was wrong in letting the Turnicinse 
form a subfamily of the Tetraonidse, the latter being the fourth 
family of his order Gallime. 
Tegumentary System. 
The primary remigeS are ten in number, of which the seventh 
to tenth or most distal quills form the tip of the wing ; the eighth 
and ninth are slightly longer than the rest, but there is no trace of 
an eleventh quill. Each of the ten primaries possesses an upper 
large covert, but there is no distinct trace of an eleventh upper 
covert. The secondary remiges or cubitals consist of eleven longer 
quills and two or three much weaker and shorter quills on the 
elbow, a character which occurs also in the Rasores, but not in the 
Turnices. The fifth cubital is absent, although it is present both 
in the Turnices and Rasores. The alula or wing of the pollex is 
