414 C. J. Sundevall on the Wings of Birds . 
should be named after their quill-feathers, so that those 
on the hand are called Tectrices primores or manus (great 
hand-coverts), and those on the forearm cubitales (great 
arm-coverts). The former are always inserted in the skin 
in the same tube with their corresponding quill-feathers, 
and so close upon the latter that the two seem to have 
grown together. The same condition occurs with those 
of the cubitus in all birds which have large cubital feathers, 
as already stated. 
The greater hand-coverts (T. majores primores) are equal 
in number to the quill-feathers. The outer ones always 
diminish in length more than the quill-feathers, so that the 
first and second are shorter than the following ones, when, 
for example, only the first quill-feather is somewhat shortened. 
They are most frequently whole-coloured and dark, very 
seldom spotted. 
Of the tectrices cubitales there are always one or two more 
than of the corresponding remiges ; thus, externally, there is 
always one small supernumerary one [l, no. 1). Properly, 
they ought to be of equal number, as the feathers here, as 
everywhere, are arranged in quincunx (rows of three different 
sets), which constitutes a continuation of their arrangement 
on the hand. The supernumerary coverts seem to me 
therefore to show that a quill-feather, which ought to have 
been placed in the middle of the wing-fold, is not deve¬ 
loped. These coverts appear in general to increase in length 
inwards, as the inner ones cover a greater portion of their 
corresponding remiges than the outer ones ; but this is 
usually due to the fact that the remiges decrease inwardly 
somewhat in length, while the coverts do not diminish. 
In the Song-birds they are so short that they do not attain 
half the length of the remiges, except inwardly in some 
genera; but in all other orders they are larger, so that they 
always reach beyond the half of their corresponding remiges, 
even the outermost (see figs. 7 and 10, /, of Song-birds, and 
figs. 3 and 11, /, of another order). Only some Pici (varii) 
and Upupa constitute an exception to this, for in this respect 
they present the same conditions as the Song-birds. 
