quotation; the few words just cited are enough to assure to their author the credit of being (so far as is known) the first ornithological specialist who had the courage publicly to recognize and receive the new and at that time unpopular philosophy. Parker. But greater work was at hand. In June 1860 W. K. Parker broke, as most will allow, entirely fresh ground by communicating to the Zoological Society a memoir “On the Osteology of Balaeniceps,” subsequently published in that Society's Transactions (iv. 269-351). Of this contribution to science, as of all the rest which have since proceeded from him, may be said in the words he himself has applied (ut supra, p. 271) to the work of another labourer in a not distant field: “This is a model paper for unbiased observation, and freedom from that pleasant mode of supposing instead of ascertaining what is the true nature of an anatomical element.”[1] Indeed, the study of this memoir, limited though it be in scope, could not fail to convince any one that it proceeded from the mind of one who taught with the authority derived directly from original knowledge, and not from association with the scribes—a conviction that has become strengthened as, in a series of successive memoirs, the stores of more than twenty years' silent observation and unremitting research were unfolded, and, more than that, the hidden forces of the science of morphology were gradually brought to bear upon almost each subject that came under discussion. These different memoirs, being technically monographs, have strictly no right to be mentioned in this place; but there is scarcely one of them, if one indeed there be, that does not deal with the generalities of the study; and the influence they have had upon contemporary investigation is so strong that it is impossible to refrain from noticing them here, though want of space forbids us from enlarging on their contents.
For some time past rumours of a discovery of the highest interest had been agitating the minds of zoologists, for in 1861 Wagner. Andreas Wagner had sent to the Academy of Sciences of Munich (Sitzungsberichte, pp. 146-154; Ann. Nat. History, series 3, ix. 261-267) ^n account of what he conceived to be a feathered reptile (assigning to it the name Griphosaurus), the remains of which had been found in the lithographic beds of Solenhofen; but he himself, through failing health, had been unable to see the fossil. In 1862 the slabs containing the remains were acquired by the British Museum, Owen. and towards the end of that year Sir R. Owen communicated a detailed description of them to the Philosophical Transactions (1863, pp. 33-47), proving their bird-like nature, and referring them to the genus Archaeopteryx of Hermann von Meyer, hitherto known only by the impression of a single feather from the same geological beds. Wagner foresaw the use that would be made of this discovery by the adherents of the new philosophy, and, in the usual language of its opponents at the time, strove to ward off the “misinterpretations” that they would put upon it. His protest, it is needless to say, was unavailing, and all who respect his memory must regret that the sunset of life failed to give him that insight into the future which is poetically ascribed to it. To Darwin and those who believed with him scarcely any discovery could have been more welcome; but that is beside our present business. It was quickly seen—even by those who held Archaeoptcryx to be a reptile—that it was a form intermediate between existing birds and existing reptiles; while those who were convinced by Sir R. Owen's researches of its ornithic affinity saw that it must belong to a type of birds wholly unknown before, and one that in any future for the arrangement of the class must have a special rank reserved for it.[2]
It behoves us next to mention the “Outlines of a Systematic Review of the Class of Birds,” communicated by W. Lilljeborg to the Zoological Society in 1866, and published in its Proceedings for that year (pp. 5-20), since it was immediately after reprinted Lilljeborg. by the Smithsonian Institution, and with that authorization has exercised a great influence on the opinions of American ornithologists. Otherwise the scheme would hardly need notice here. This paper is indeed little more than an English translation of one published by the author in the annual volume (Årsskrift) of the Scientific Society of Upsala for 1860, and belonging to the pre-Darwinian epoch should perhaps have been more properly treated before, but that at the time of its original appearance it failed to attract attention. The chief merit of the scheme perhaps is that, contrary to nearly every precedent, it begins with the lower and rises to the higher groups of birds, which is of course the natural mode of proceeding, and one therefore to be commended. Otherwise the “principles” on which it is founded are not clear to the ordinary zoologist. One of them is said to be “irritability,” and, though this is explained to mean, not “muscular strength alone, but vivacity and activity generally,”[3] it does not seem to form a character that can be easily appreciated either as to quantity or quality; in fact, most persons would deem it quite immeasurable, and, as such, removed from practical consideration. Moreover, Professor Lilljeborg's scheme, being actually an adaptation of that of Sundevall, of which we shall have to speak at some length almost immediately, may possibly be left for the present with these remarks.
In the spring of the year 1867 Professor T. H. Huxley, to the delight of an appreciative audience, delivered at the Royal Huxley. College of Surgeons of England a course of lectures on birds, and a few weeks after presented an abstract of his researches to the Zoological Society, in whose Proceedings for the same year it will be found printed (pp. 415-472) as a paper “On the Classification of Birds, and on the taxonomic value of the modifications of certain of the cranial bones observable in that Class.” Starting from the basis “that the phrase ‘birds are greatly modified reptiles’ would hardly be an exaggerated expression of the closeness” of the resemblance between the two classes, which he had previously brigaded under the name of Sauropsida (as he had brigaded the Pisces and Amphibia as Ichthyopsida), he drew in bold outline both their likenesses and their differences, and then proceeded to inquire how the Aves could be most appropriately subdivided into orders, suborders and families. In this course of lectures he had already dwelt at some length on the insufficiency of the characters on which such groups as had hitherto been thought to be established were founded; but for the consideration of this part of his subject there was no room in the present paper, and the reasons why he arrived at the conclusion that new means of philosophically and successfully separating the class must be sought are herein left to be inferred. The upshot, however, admits of no uncertainty: the class Aves is held to be composed of three “Orders”—
| I. | Saururae, Häckel; |
| II. | Ratitae, Merrem; and |
| III. | Carinatae, Merrem. |
The Saururae have the metacarpals well developed and not ancylosed, and the caudal vertebrae are numerous and large, so that the caudal region of the spine is longer than the body. The furcula is complete and strong, the feet very passerine in appearance. The skull and sternum were at the time unknown, and indeed the whole order, without doubt entirely extinct, rested exclusively on the celebrated fossil, then unique, Archaeopteryx.
The Ratitae comprehend the struthious birds, which differ from all others now extant in the combination of several peculiarities, some of which have been mentioned in the preceding pages. The sternum has no keel, and ossifies from lateral and paired centres only; the axes of the scapula and coracoid have the same general direction; certain of the cranial bones have characters very unlike those possessed by the next order—the vomer, for example, being broad posteriorly and generally intervening between the basisphenoidal rostrum and the palatals and pterygoids; the barbs of the feathers are disconnected; there is no syrinx or inferior larynx; and the diaphragm is better developed than in other birds.[4]
- ↑ It is fair to state that some of Professor Parker's conclusions respecting Balaeniceps were contested by the late Professor J. T. Reinhardt (Overs. K. D. Vid. Selsk. Forhandlinger, 1861, pp. 135-154; Ibis, 1862, pp. 158-175), and as it seems to the present writer not ineffectually. Professor Parker replied to his critic (Ibis, 1862, pp. 297-299).
- ↑ This was done shortly afterwards by Professor Haeckel, who proposed the name Saururae for the group containing it.
- ↑ On this ground it is stated that the Passeres should be placed highest in the class. But those who know the habits and demeanour of many of the Limicolae would no doubt rightly claim for them much more “vivacity and activity” than is possessed by most Passeres.
- ↑ This peculiarity had led some zoologists to consider the struthious birds more nearly allied to the Mammalia than any others.
