46 
ZOOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 
species, but which he most judiciously refrains from describing. 
The results of some experiments in marking birds, to see how 
long they continue in company with a ship, are detailed, but 
these we cannot hold to be quite conclusive. More satisfactory 
are the observations showing that these ocean wanderers pass 
the night on the water. Much benefit would be derived, how- 
ever, if there were more exact and trustworthy observers such 
as Capt. Hutton. 
Huxley, Thomas H. On the Classification of Birds; and on 
the Taxonomic Value of the Modifications of certain of the 
Cranial Bones observable in that Class. Proe. Zool. Soc. 
1867, pp. 415-472. 
This paper, so far as we are aware, is immeasurably the most 
important that has appeared during the past year ; and its effects 
on the future progress of ornithology can hardly be estimated. 
After briefly recapitulating the principal characters possessed in 
common by Aves and Reptilia, causing them to be regarded by 
the author as forming one primary group of Vertebrates, to 
which he has applied the name Sauropsida, and then the cha- 
racters distinguishing Birds from Hep tiles, he divides Aves into 
three orders: — (I.) Saurur^e, Hackel, (II.) Eatitas, Merrem, and 
(III.) Carinatas, Merrem. The ^aurwree have the metacarpals 
well developed and not anchylosed, and the caudal vertebrie are 
numerous and large, so that the caudal region of the spine is 
longer than the body. The furculum is complete and strong, 
the feet very Passerine in appearance. The skull and sternum 
are unknown ; indeed the whole Order rests entirely on the cele- 
brated unique fossil Archaeopteryx (Phil. Trans, 1863, pp. 33~ 
47, pis. i.~iv.), and is without doubt entirely extinct. The 
RatUce comprehend the Struthious birds, and differ from all 
others in the combination of several peculiarities. The sternum 
has no keel, and ossifies from lateral and paired centres only ; 
the axes of the scapula and coracoid have the same general di- 
rection ; certain of the cranial bones have characters very unlike 
those possessed by the next order — the vomer, for example, being 
broad posteriorly and generally intervening between the basi- 
sphenoidal rostrum and the palatals and pterygoids ; the barbs 
of the feathers are disconnected ; there is no inferior larynx ; 
and the diaphragm is better developed than in other birds. The 
Ratitae are divided into five groups, separated by very trenchant 
characters, principally osteological, those afforded by the cranial 
bones being illustrated by a series of figures. These groups 
contain (i) Struthio"^, (ii) RheUj (iii) Casuarius and Dromaeus^ 
(iv) DinornithiSj and (v) Apterygidae ; but no names are given to 
* The old names of the genera or lar^^er grouns in the present abstract 
must be understood in the same sense as that in which they have been used 
in this ‘ Eecord ’ for previous years. 
