162 
Jeffries on the Primaries of Birds . 
tufts can be seen. But this is not all ; at the extreme tip of the 
finger can be seen a well developed claw. Passing now to the 
adult wild Dusky Duck (Anas obscura) we find ten developed 
primaries, nine well developed coverts and two “ little feathers,” 
which, by the way, are good sized. These two little feathers are 
in precisely the same relative positions as in Melospiza and 
represent the aborted first primary and first covert. A year ago 
I made an examination of the last phalanx of the second finger 
for a claw but only found a slight trace of it in one case out of 
about twenty, so that we may fairly class the claw as an organ 
now functionless and accordingly disappearing. The same con- 
dition of the wing holds good for all the Ducks examined by me. 
They were the following : CEdemia perspicillata, Anas obscura , 
Aix s pons a, dfuerquedula carolinensis , Bucephaia islandica . 
Among the Li?7iicolce I have examined the young of Vanellus 
cristatus and of the Woodcock (Philohela minor'). In the 
young of the Spur-wing there are distinctly eleven primaries and 
ten coverts. In the young, however, I have been unable to find 
more than ten among adult birds of this group. I have examined 
the following and found all but the last to have ww little feathers” : 
Charadrius fulvus , Strepsilas interpres , AEgialites scmipal- 
inatus , Ereunetes se77iipaimatus , Totanus melanoleucus , Te- 
tanus flavifies. Tringoides 7nacidar ius (young) , Philohela minor. 
Of Sea-fowl I have been able, through the kindness of Mr. J. 
A. Allen, to examine the young of a Gull, an Auk and a Petrel. 
In the first case I found eleven primaries and ten coverts ; in the 
second, the same numbers and a terminal claw ; in the third case, 
only ten primaries and ten coverts. 
Mr. Allen also gave me for examination two young of the 
South African Ostrich. Here the primaries and secondaries 
run in a straight line from the elbow to the tip of the II finger 
and have no connection with the little III finger. Hence it is 
difficult to say how many spring from the hand and how many 
from the arm, certainly seventeen and perhaps eighteen, there 
being about thirty-two in all. Whether we call these primaries 
depends on our ideas of phylogenetic relations of the Struthiones. 
If these are degredational forms from flying birds then we must 
call them the representatives of primaries; if, on the other hand, 
the Ostriches never flew they ought, I suppose, to be considered as 
simple contour feathers. 
