ORNITHOLOGY 31 too much importance may easily be, and already has been, assigned to them. 1 This will perhaps be the most convenient place to mention another kind of classification of Birds, which, based on a principle wholly different from those that have just been explained, requires a few words, though it has not been productive, nor is likely, from all that appears, to be productive of any great effect. So long ago j iona- as 1831, BONAPARTE, in his Saggio di una distributions metodica j >arte. degli Animali Vertebrati, published at Rome, and in 1837 com- i municated to the Linnoan Society of London, "A new Systematic ! Arrangement of Vertebrated Animals," which was subsequently J printed in that Society s Transactions (xviii. pp. 247-304), though before it appeared there was issued at Bologna, under the title of j Synopsis Vcrtebratorum Sijstematis, a Latin translation of it. j Herein he divided the Class Avcs into two Subclasses, to which he applied the names of Insessores and Grallatorcs (hitherto used by their inventors Vigors and Illiger in a different sense), in the latter work relying chiefly for this division on characters which had not before been used by any systematist, namely, that in the former group Monogamy generally prevailed and the helpless nestlings were fed by their parents, while the latter group were mostly Polygamous, and the chicks at birth were active and capable of feeding themselves. This method, which in process of time was dignified by the title of a Physiological Arrangement, was insisted upon with more or less pertinacity by the author throughout a long series of publications, some of them separate books, some of them contributed to the memoirs issued by many scientific bodies of various European countries, ceasing only at his death, which in July 1857 found him occupied upon a Conspectus Gencrum Arium, that in consequence remains unfinished (see p. 14). In the course of this series, however, he saw fit to alter the name of his two Sub classes, since those which he at first adopted were open to a variety of meanings, and in a communication to the French Academy of Sciences in 1853 (Comptcs Jtcndus, xxxvii. pp. 641- 647) the denomination Inscssorcs was changed to Altriccs, and Grallatorcs to Prsscoces the terms now preferred by him being taken from Sundevall s treatise of 1835 already mentioned. The views of Bonaparte were, it appears, also shared by an ornithological rlogg. amateur of some distinction, HOGG, who propounded a scheme which, as he subsequently stated (Zoologist, 1850, p. 2797), was founded strictly in accordance with them ; but it would seem that, allowing his convictions to be warped by other considerations, he abandoned the original "physiological" basis of his system, so that this, when published in 1846 (Edinb. N. Philosoph. Journal, xli. pp. 50-71), was found to be established on a single character of the feet only ; though he was careful to point out, immediately after formulating the definition of his Subclasses Constridipedes and IiKconstrictipcdes, that the former "make, in general, compact and well-built nests, wherein they bring up their very weak, blind, and mostly naked young, which they feed with care, by bringing food to them for many days, until they are fledged and sufficiently strong to leave their nest," observing also that they "are princi pally monogamous " (pp. 55, 56) ; while of the latter he says that they "make either a poor and rude nest, in which they lay their eggs, or else none, depositing them on the bare ground. The young are generally born with their full sight, covered with down, strong, and capable of running or swimming immediately after they leave the egg-shell." He adds that the parents, which "are mostly polygamous," attend their young and direct them where to find their food (p. 63). The numerous errors in these assertions hardly need pointing out. The Herons, for instance, are much more " Constrictipcdes" than are the Larks or the Kingfishers, and, so far from the majority of " Inconstridipedes" being polygamous, there is scarcely any evidence of polygamy obtaining as a habit among Birds in a state of nature except in certain of the GaUinx and a very few others. Furthermore, the young of the Goatsuckers are at hatching far more developed than are those of the Herons or the Cormorants ; and, in a general way, nearly every one of the as serted peculiarities of the two Subclasses breaks down under careful examination. Yet the idea of a "physiological" arrangement on the same kind of principle found another follower, or, as he Newman, thought, inventor, in NEWMAN, who in 1850 communicated to the Zoological Society of London a plan published in its Proceedings for that year (pp. 46-48), and reprinted also in his own journal The Zoologist (pp. 2780-2782), based on exactly the same consider ations, dividing Birds into two groups, " Hesthogenous " a word so vicious in formation as to be incapable of amendment, but intended to signify those that were hatched with a clothing, of down and "Gymnogenous," or those that were hatched naked. These three systems are essentially identical ; but, plausible as they may be at 1 A much more extensive and detailed application of his method was begun by Prof. Cabauis in the Museum Heineanum, a very useful catalogue of specimens in the collection of Herr Oberamtmann Heine, of which the first part was published at Halberstadt in 1850, and the last which has appeared, the work being still unfinished, in 1863. the first aspect, they have been found to be practically useless, though such of their characters as their upholders have advanced with truth deserve attention. Physiology may one day very likely assist the systematist; but it must be real physiology and not a sham. In 1856 Prof. GERVAI.S, who had already contributed to the Gervais. Zoologie of M. do Castelnau s Expedition dans les parties centrales de VAmerique du Sud some important memoirs describing the anatomy of the HOACTZTN (vol. xii. p. 28) and certain other Birds of doubtful or anomalous position, published some remarks on the characters which could be drawn from the sternum of Birds (Ann. Sc. Nat. Zoologie, ser. 4, vi. pp. 5-15). The considerations are not very striking from a general point of view ; but the author adds to the weight of evidence which some of his predecessors had brought to bear on certain matters, particularly in aiding to abolish the artificial groups " Deodactyls," "Syndactyls, "and " Zygodactyls," on which so much reliance had been placed by many of his countrymen ; and it is with him a great merit that he was the first apparently to recognize publicly that characters drawn from the posterior part of the sternum, and particularly from the " echancrurcs, commonly called in English "notches" or "emar- ginations," are of comparatively little importance, since their number is apt to vary in forms that are most closely allied, and the other hand foramina may exceptionally change to "notches," and not unfrequently disappear wholly. Among his chief system atic determinations we may mention that he refers the Tinamous to the Rails, because apparently of their deep "notches," but otherwise takes a view of that group more correct according to modern notions than did most of his contemporaries. The Bustards he would place with the " Limicoles," as also Dromas and Chionis, the SHEATH-BILL (q.v.}. Phaethon, the TROPIC-BIRD (q.v.), lie would place with the "Larides" and not with the " Peleeanides," which it only resembles in its feet having all the toes connected by a web. Finally Divers, Auks, and Penguins, according to him, form the last term in the series, and it seems iit to him that they should be regarded as forming a separate Order. It is a curious fact that even at & date so late as this, and by an investigator so well informed, doubt should still have existed whether Apleryx (Kiwi, vol. xiv. p. 104) should be referred to the group containing the Cassowary and the Ostrich. On the whole the remarks of this esteemed author do not go much beyond such as might occur to any one who had made a study of a good series of specimens ; but many of them are published for the first time, and the author is careful to insist on the necessity of not resting solely on sternal characters, but associating with them those drawn from other parts of the body. Three years later in the same journal (xi. pp. 11-145, pis. 2-4) Blan- M. BLANC HARD published some Recherches sur les caracteres osteo- chard. logiqiies des Oiseaux appliquics a la Classification naturelle de ces animaux, strongly urging the superiority of such characters over those drawn from the bill or feet, which, he n marks, though they may have sometimes given correct notions, have mostly led to mis takes, and, if observations of habits and food have sometimes afforded happy results, they have often been deceptive ; so that, should more be wanted than to draw up a mere inventory of creation or trace the distinctive outline of each species, zoology without anatomy would remain a barren study. At the same time he states that authors who have occupied themselves with the sternum alone have often produced uncertain results, especially when they have neglected its anterior for its posterior part ; for in truth every bone of the skeleton ought to be studied in all its details. Yet this dis tinguished zoologist selects the sternum as furnishing the key to his primary groups or "Orders" of the Class, adopting, as Merrem had done long before, the same two divisions Carinatse, and Ratify, naming, however, the former Tropidosternii and the lattt-r Ifomaloslcrnii. 3 Some unkind fate has hitherto hindered him from making known to the world the rest of his researches in regard to the other bones of the skeleton till he reached the head, and in the memoir cited he treats of the sternum of only a portion of his first "Order." This is the more to be regretted by all ornithologists, since he intended to conclude with what to them would have been
- a very great boon the shewing in what way external characters
j coincided with those presented by Osteology. It was also within - the scope of his plan to have continued on a more extended scale the researches on ossification begun by L Herminier, and thus M. - Thus he cites the cases of Machetes pugnax and Scolopax riisti^- cola among the " Limicoles," and Larus cataractes among the " Larides, | as differing from their nearest allies by the possession of only one i " notch " on either side of the keel. Several additional instances are cited in Philos. Transactions, 1869, p. 337, note. 3 These terms were explained in his great work L Organisation du Regne Animal, Oiseaux (p. 16), begun in 1855, and still (1884) no further advanced than its fourth part, comprehending in all but thirty- two pages of letter-press, to mean exactly the same as those applied by Merrem to his two primary divisions.
