and these descriptions being almost without exception so drawn up as to be comparative are accordingly of great utility to the student of classification, though they have been so greatly neglected. Upon these descriptions he was still engaged till death, in 1837, put an end to his labours, when his place as Naumann’s assistant for the remainder of the work was taken by Rudolph Wagner; but, from time to time, a few more, which he had already completed, made their posthumous appearance in it, and, in subsequent years, some selections from his unpublished papers were through the care of Giebel presented to the public. Throughout the whole of this series the same marvellous industry and scrupulous accuracy are manifested, and attentive study of it will show how many times Nitzsch anticipated the conclusions of modern taxonomers. Yet over and over again his determination of the affinities of several groups even of European birds was disregarded; and his labours, being contained in a bulky and costly work, were hardly known at all outside of his own country, and within it by no means appreciated so much as they deserved[1]—for even Naumann himself, who gave them publication, and was doubtless in some degree influenced by them, utterly failed to perceive the importance of the characters offered by the song-muscles of certain groups, though their peculiarities were all duly described and recorded by his coadjutor, as some indeed had been long before by Cuvier in his famous dissertation[2] on the organs of voice in birds (Leçons d’anatomie comparée, iv. 450-491). Nitzsch’s name was subsequently dismissed by Cuvier without a word of praise, and in terms which would have been applicable to many another and inferior author, while Temminck, terming Naumann’s work an “ouvrage de luxe”—it being in truth one of the cheapest for its contents ever published—effectually shut it out from the realms of science. In Britain it seems to have been positively unknown until quoted some years after its completion by a catalogue-compiler on account of some peculiarities of nomenclature which it presented.
Now we must return to France, where, in 1827, L’Herminier, a Creole of Guadaloupe and a pupil of De Blainville’s, contributed to the Actes of the Linnaean Society of Paris for that year (vi. 3-93) the “Recherches sur l’appareil sternal des Oiseaux,” which the precept and example of his master had prompted him to undertake, and Cuvier L’Herminier. had found for him the means of executing. A second and considerably enlarged edition of this very remarkable treatise was published as a separate work in the following year. We have already seen that De Blainville, though fully persuaded of the great value of sternal features as a method of classification, had been compelled to fall back upon the old pedal characters so often employed before; but now the scholar had learnt to excel his teacher, and not only to form an at least provisional arrangement of the various members of the Class, based on sternal characters, but to describe these characters at some length, and so give a reason for the faith that was in him. There is no evidence, so far as we can see, of his having been aware of Merrem’s views; but like that anatomist he without hesitation divided the class into two great “coupes,” to which he gave, however, no other names than “Oiseaux normaux” and “Oiseaux anomaux”—exactly corresponding with his predecessor’s Carinatae and Ratitae—and, moreover, he had a great advantage in founding these groups, since he had discovered, apparently from his own investigations, that the mode of ossification in each was distinct; for hitherto the statement of there being five centres of ossification in every bird’s sternum seems to have been accepted as a general truth, without contradiction, whereas in the ostrich and the rhea, at any rate, L’Herminier found that there were but two such primitive points,[3] and from analogy he judged that the same would be the case with the cassowary and the emeu, which, with the two forms mentioned above, made up the whole of the “Oiseaux anomaux” whose existence was then generally acknowledged.[4] These are the forms which composed the family previously termed Cursores by De Blainville; but L’Herminier was able to distinguish no fewer than thirty-four families of “Oiseaux normaux,” and the judgment with which their separation and definition were effected must be deemed on the whole to be most creditable to him. It is to be remarked, however, that the wealth of the Paris Museum, which he enjoyed to the full, placed him in a situation incomparably more favourable for arriving at results than that which was occupied by Merrem, to whom many of the most remarkable forms were wholly unknown, while L’Herminier had at his disposal examples of nearly every type then known to exist. But the latter used this privilege wisely and well—not, after the manner of De Blainville and others subsequent to him, relying solely or even chiefly on the character afforded by the posterior portion of the sternum, but taking also into consideration those of the anterior, as well as of the in some cases still more important characters presented by the pre-sternal bones, such as the furcula, coracoids and scapulae. L’Herminier thus separated the families of “Normal Birds”:—
| 1. “Accipitres”—Accipitres, Linn. | 18. “Passereaux”—Passeres, Linn. |
| 2. “Serpentaires”—Gypogeranus, Illiger. | 19. “Pigeons”—Columba, Linn. |
| 3. “Chouettes”—Strix, Linn. | 20. “Gallinacés”—Gallinacea. |
| 4. “Touracos”—Opaetus, Vieillot. | 21. “Tinamous”—Tinamus, Latham. |
| 5. “Perroquets”—Psittacus, Linn. | 22. “Foulques on Poules d’eau”—Fulica, Linn. |
| 6. “Colibris”—Trochilus, Linn. | 23. “Grues”—Grus, Pallas. |
| 7. “Martinets”—Cypselus, Illiger. | 24. “Hérodions”—Herodii, Illiger. |
| 8. “Engoulevents”—Caprimulgus, Linn. | 25. No name given, but said to include “les ibis et les spatules.” |
| 9. “Coucous”—Cuculus, Linn. | 26. “Gralles ou Échassiers”—Grallae. |
| 10. “Couroucous”—Trogon, Linn. | 27. “Mouettes”—Larus, Linn. |
| 11. “Rolliers”—Galgulus, Brisson. | 28. “Pétrels”—Procellaria, Linn. |
| 12. “Guêpiers”—Merops, Linn. | 29. “Pélicans”—Pelecanus, Linn. |
| 13. “Martins-Pêcheurs”—Alcedo, Linn. | 30. “Canards”—Anas, Linn. |
| 14. “Calaos”—Buceros, Linn. | 31. “Grèbes”—Podiceps, Latham. |
| 15. “Toucans”—Ramphastos, Linn. | 32. “Plongeons”—Colymbus, Latham. |
| 16. “Pies”—Picus, Linn. | 33. “Pingouins”—Alca, Latham. |
| 17. “Épopsides”—Epopsides, Vieillot. | 34. “Manchots”—Aptenodytes, Forster. |
The preceding list is given to show the very marked agreement of L’Herminier’s results compared with those obtained fifty years later by another investigator, who approached the subject from an entirely different, though still osteological, basis. Many of the excellencies of L’Herminier’s method could not be pointed out without too great a sacrifice of space, because of the details into which it would be necessary to enter; but the trenchant way in which he showed that the “Passereaux”—a group of which Cuvier had said, “Son caractère semble d’abord purement négatif,” and had then failed to define the limits—differed so completely from every other assemblage, while maintaining among its own innumerable members an almost perfect essential homogeneity, is very striking, and shows how admirably he could grasp his subject. Not less conspicuous are his merits in disposing of the groups of what are ordinarily known as water-birds, his indicating the affinity of the rails (No. 22) to the cranes (No. 23), and the severing of the latter from the herons (No. 24). His union of the snipes, sandpipers and plovers into one group (No. 26) and the alliance, especially dwelt upon, of that group with the gulls (No. 27) are steps which, though indicated by Merrem, are here for the first time clearly laid down; and the separation of the gulls from the petrels (No. 28)—step in advance already taken, it is true, by Illiger—is here placed on indefeasible ground. With all this, perhaps on account of all this, L’Herminier’s efforts did not
- ↑ Their value was, however, understood by Gloger, who in 1834, as will presently be seen, expressed his regret at not being able to use them.
- ↑ Cuvier’s first observations on the subject seem to have appeared in the Magazin encyclopédique for 1795 (ii. pp. 330, 358).
- ↑ This fact in the ostrich appears to have been known already to Geoffroy St-Hilaire from his own observation in Egypt, but does not seem to have been published by him.
- ↑ Considerable doubts were at that time entertained in Paris as to the existence of the Apteryx.
