IS 6 
Jeffries on the Primaries of Birds. 
ON THE NUMBER OF PRIMARIES IN BIRDS. 
BY J. AMORY JEFFRIES. 
Little attention has been paid to the number of primaries in 
the different species of birds save in the Oscines , where the 
number has been supposed to vary from nine to ten. In 1840 
Nitzsch, in his great work on the feather tracts of birds, showed 
that nearly all birds, except the nine-primaried species, had ten 
primaries. However, he showed that the Storks, Flamingoes, 
some species of Colymbus , Alca torda , and some species of 
Uria had eleven primaries. Later Sundevall* showed that the 
wing feathers are, like those of the rest of the body, in quincunx 
order. In treating of the primaries, lie says that they vary from 
nine to eleven, the only cases of the last number being found in 
Podiceps , Phoenicopterus , Anastomus , Tantalus, Ciconia , 
Musophaga , and Corythaix. The first primary, when present, 
is inserted on the third phalanx of the II finger, at least in Podi- 
ceps , the second primary on the second phalanx, the third and fourth 
on the first phalanx, and the rest on the metacarpal. Sundevall 
also states that there are as many coverts as primaries. 
Until the publication of Baird’s u Review of American Birds,” 
it was supposed that Passerine birds varied in the number of their 
primaries, some families, as the Thrushes, having ten prima- 
ries, others, as the Tanagers, and Finches, having nine, and in 
one group, the Vireos, some species were thought to have nine, 
others ten primaries. In the work above referred to Professor 
Baird showed that in nine-primaried Oscines there were two 
‘ 4 little feathers ” placed at the end of the wing, which he con- 
siders, judging from position and color, to be the first primary 
and covert. In ten-primaried birds there is but one little feather, 
which Professor Baird called a covert. 
In 1876, Dr. Couesj* repeated the observations of Professor 
Baird in all the North American families of Oscines. He found 
that, with the possible exception of Collurio and Ampelis,% all 
* Kong. Vetenskaps Academien Handlingar, 1843, ubersetzt im Cabanis’s Journ. fur 
Orn M III. Jabr. (1855), pp. 118-168. 
t Bull. Nutt. Ornith. Club, I, No. 3, Sept., 1876, pp. 60-63. 
X Ampclis has two little feathers. 
