Order— P ELECANIFORMES. 
This Order cannot be regarded as superficially a homogeneous assemblage 
a term I used in connection with the preceding Order. Heterogeneous 
would seem to be a more appropriate term, but upon deeper study the apparent 
polyphyletic association becomes less marked, though still negative features 
seem to predominate in grouping the varied forms here classed together. 
In the case of the Anseriformes the Order was coincident with one family. 
In the present case, six very distinct families are admitted, and in the 
Catalogue of the Birds in the British Museum, where the Order was 
monographed by that conservative worker Mr. W. E. Ogilvie-Grant in 1898, 
five families and one subfamily still appear ; when it is noted that each 
family and subfamily are not further subdivided but all the species, few 
or many, in each division are referred to a single genus, the term 
conservative will not seem Hi-applied. 
Linne, in 1758, admitted two genera, but Brisson in 1760 admitted five 
of the six genera Ogilvie-Grant used in 1898; such a remarkable instance 
of conservatism surely cannot be equalled in any other branch of science. 
This is merely due to the inability to separate family characters from those of 
less value, a common enough error made by careless workers when dealing 
with large birds, and one that has persisted, on the score of convenience, 
for 150 years. The lumping school of the present day use these indefinite 
genera as it makes progress easy, and difficult problems connected with 
the phylogenetic evolution of groups are thereby shirked. The disposal of a 
bird in this manner retards progress and no advance in the history of the 
evolution of the bird group is made, but confusion perpetuated to 
the sorrow of the philosophical worker. The determination of subspecific 
forms seems to be the all-in-all of some present day workers, and when such 
provide geographical papers of no value from a philosophical point of view 
they fail to adduce any conclusions produced by their efforts. Monography 
is scarcely indulged in, the Catalogue of the Birds of the British Museum 
being the best attempt, but of course that was primarily a Catalogue, and 
though serious efforts were made by some of the compilers to produce 
permanent records others were as careless of the result obtained. In the 
present work I am unable to monograph the birds of the world, but I hope 
to deal thoroughly with all the endemic groups, which will now shortly 
come under consideration. 
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