birds 255 Fuerbringer’s classitication stands as follows. The 90 those the assigned position of which is of particular & families have here been omitted for want of space, save interest: Sub-class I. Saururse. Order Archoknithes. Gens. Arehseopteryges. Sub-class II. Omithurae. Order. Sub-order. Gens. Struthiornithes . Struthioniformcs . Struthiones. Kheornithes . . Rheiformes Rhe;e. Hippalectryornithes . Casuariiformcs Casuarii. Intermediary Sub-orders. JEpyornUhiformes. iEpyornithes. Ralamcdeiformes . Palamedea?. / Gastornithes. ' A'tiseriforraes Anseres. ( Enaliornithes. Podicipitif(mnes J Hesperornithes. Pelargornitiies ( Golymbo-Podicipites. j" Phoenicopteri. | Pelargo-Herodii. Ciconiiformes | Accipitres. fSteganopodes. Intermediary Sub-orders. Procellariiforrnes . Tubinares. Aptenodytiformes . Impennes. Ichthyomithiformes Ichthyomithes. f Laro-Limicolae. Charadriornithes . . Charadriiformes . Parra. I Otides. I ntermediary Sub-orders. /Eurypygae, including Rhinochetus, Aptornis. Gruiformes . Grues. / Fulicariae (Heliornithidae + Rallidae). Ralliformes . 1 Hemipodii (Mesitidae + Hemipodidae). Apterygiform.es Apteryges (including Dinomithidae). AlectorornIthes Crypturiformes Crypturi. Galliformes . Galli (including Opisthocomidae). Intermediary Sub-orders. f Pterocletes. Colnmbiformes fColumlne. Psittaciformcs Psittaci. f Coccyges. Ooccygiformes fGalbulfe. Pici 'Pico-Passercs. /Pseudoscines. Passei’es . (Passcridae. Pico-Passeriformes f Cypselidae. Macrochires Trochilidae. CORACORNITHES vColii. ? Trogones. (Halcyones. Haley oniforracs . -[ Bucerotes (Bucerotidae + Upupidae). (Meropes. ? Todi (Todidae + Momotidae). f Coraciae. _ Ooraciiformes . -! Caprimulgi. [Striges. Another comprehensive work on the anatomy and classi- of Birds, Introduction, p. 103). It is not the quantity fication of birds, which has appeared since the publication but the quality of the anatomical and bionomic characters Qadow. °^T Professor Newton’s article Ornithology which determines their taxonomic value, and a few funda(Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. xviii.), is the mental characters are better indications of the affinities of volume A ves of Brown’s Classen und Ordnungen des Thier- given groups of birds than a great number of agreements reichs. Begun originally by E. Selenka, the anatomical if these can be shown to be cases of isomorphism or part was taken up in 1884 by H. Gadow, by whom it heterophyletic, convergent analogy. Nature possesses was completed in 1891, andin 1893 it was followed three great educational or developmental schools—terresby the systematic part. Harmonious intercourse with trial, aquatic, and aerial fife. Each of these affords Fuerbringer and the benefit of the latter’s work enabled animal, vegetable, or mixed diet. Animal diet implies the present writer not only to continue the same fines of the greatest variety with regard to locality and the modes morphological research, but also further to investigate those of procuring the food. Each of these schools impresses questions which were still left in abeyance or seemed to its pupils, in the case of the birds, with its own stamp, require renewed study. The resulting “classification is but there are many combinations, since in the course of based on the examination, mostly autoptic, of a far greater phyletic development many a group of birds has exchanged number of characters than any that had preceded it; more- one school for another. Originally terrestrial groups have over, they were chosen in a different way, discernment taken to an entirely aquatic fife, and vice versa; others, being exercised in sifting and weighing them, so as to originally endowed with the power of flight, have become, determine, so far as possible, the relative value of each, or are transforming themselves into, absolutely cursorial according as that value may vary in different groups, and forms; some members of one group five entirely on seeds, not to produce a mere mechanical ‘ key ’ after the fashion while others have become fierce fishers, and so forth. become of late years so common ” (Newton’s Dictionary Only by the most careful inquiry into their history can
