Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/49

ORNITHOLOGY 39 could not, by trusting only to external characters, do better than this, the most convincing proof is afforded of the inability of external characters alone to produce anything save ataxy. The principal merits it possesses are con fined to the minor arrangement of some of the Oscines ; but even here many of the alliances, such, for instance, as that of Pitta with the true Thrushes, are indefensible on any rational grounds, and some, as that of Accentor with the Weaver-birds and Whydah-birds, verge upon the ridiculous, while on the other hand the interpolation of the American Fly-catching Warblers, Mniotiltidx, between the normal Warblers of the Old World and the Thrushes is as bad especially when the genus Mniotilta is placed, not withstanding its different wing-formula, with the Tree- creepers, Certhiidse. The whole work unfortunately betrays throughout an utter want of the sense of proportion. In many of the large groups the effect of very slight differ ences is to keep the forms exhibiting them widely apart, while in most of the smaller groups differences of far greater kind are overlooked, so that the forms which present them are linked together in more or less close union. Thus, regarding only external characters, great as is the structural distinction between the Gannets, Cormorants, Frigate-birds, and Pelicans, it is not held to remove them from the limits of a single Family; and yet the Thrushes and the Chats, whose distinctions are barely sensible, are placed in separate Families, as are also the Chats and the Nightingales, wherein no structural distinc tions at all can be traced. Again, even in one and the same group the equalization of characters indicative of Families is wholly neglected. Thus among the Pigeons the genera Didus and Didunculus, which differ, so far as we know it, in every external character of their structure, are placed in one Family, and yet on the slightest pre text the genus Goura, which in all respects so intimately resembles ordinary Pigeons, is set apart as the represen tative of a distinct Family. The only use of dwelling upon these imperfections here is the hope that thereby students of Ornithology may be induced to abandon the belief in the efficacy of external characters as a sole means of classification, and, by seeing how unmanageable they become unless checked by internal characters, be per suaded of the futility of any attempt to form an arrange ment without that solid foundation which can only be obtained by a knowledge of anatomy. Where Sundevall failed no one else is likely to succeed; for he was a man gifted with intelligence of a rare order, a man of cultiva tion and learning, one who had devoted his whole life to science, who had travelled much, studied much and reflected much, a man whose acquaintance with the literature of his subject probably exceeded that of any of his contemporaries, and a man whose linguistic attainments rendered him the envy of his many friends. Yet what should have been the crowning work of his long life is one that all who respected him, and that comprehends all who knew him, must regret. larrod Of the very opposite kind was the work of the two men 111( 1 next to be mentioned GARROD and FORBES both cut short in a career of promise * that among students of Ornithology has rarely been equalled and perhaps never surpassed. The present writer finds it difficult to treat of the labours of two pupils and friends from whose assistance he had originally hoped to profit in the preparation of this very article, the more so that, while fully recognizing the brilliant nature of some of their researches, he is compelled very frequently to dissent from the conclusions at which 1 Alfred Henvy Garrod, Prosector to the Zoological Society of London, died of consumption in 1879, aged thirty-three. His successor in that office, William Alexander Forbes, fell a victim to the deadly climate of the Niger in 1883, and in his twenty-eighth year. they arrived, deeming them to have often been of a kind that, had their authors survived to a maturer age, they would have greatly modified. Still he well knows that learners are mostly wiser than their teachers ; and, making due allowance for the haste with which, from the exigencies of the post they successively held, their investigations had usually to be published, he believes that much of the highest value underlies even the crudest conjectures con tained in their several contributions to Ornithology. Putting aside the monographical papers by which each of them followed the excellent example set by their predecessor in the office they filled Dr MURIE 2 and beginning with Garrod s, 3 those having a more general scope, all published in the Zoological Society s Proceedings, may be briefly con sidered. Starting from the level reached by Prof. Huxley, the first attempt made by the younger investigator was in 1873, " On the value in Classification of a Peculiarity in the anterior margin of the Nasal Bones in certain Birds." Herein he strove to prove that Birds ought to be divided into two Subclasses one, called " Holorhinal," in which a straight line drawn transversely across the hindmost points of the external narial apertures passes in front of the posterior ends of the nasal processes of the prsemaxillae, and the other, called " Schizorhinal, " in which such a line passes behind those processes. If this be used as a criterion, the validity of Prof. Huxley s group Schizognathx is shaken ; but there is no need to enlarge upon the pro posal, for it was virtually abandoned by its author within little more than a twelvemonth. The next subject in con nexion with Systematic Ornithology to which Garrod applied himself was an investigation of the Carotid Arteries, and here, in the same year, he made a consider able advance upon the labours of Nitzsch, as might well be expected, for the opportunities of the latter were very limited, and he was only able, as we have seen (page 22), to adduce four types of structure in them, while Garrod, with the superior advantages of his situation, raised the number to six. Nevertheless he remarks that their " dis position has not much significance among Birds, there being many Families in which, whilst the majority of the species have two, some have only one carotid." The exceptional cases cited by him are quite sufficient to prove that the condition of this artery has nearly no value from the point of view of general classification. If relied upon it would split up the Families Bucerotidse, and Cypselidx, which no sane person would doubt to be homogeneous and natural. The femoral vessels formed another subject of investigation, and were found to exhibit as much exceptional conformation as those of the neck for instance in Centropus phasianus, one of the Birds known as Coucals, the femoral artery accompanies the femoral vein, though it does not do so in another species of the genus, C. rufipennis, nor in any other of the Cuculidx (to which Family the genus Centropus has been always assigned) examined by Garrod. Nor are the results of the very great labour which he bestowed upon the muscular con formation of the thigh in Birds any more conclusive when they come to be impartially and carefully considered. Myology was with him always a favourite study, and he 2 Dr Mnrie s chief papers having a direct hearing on Systematic Murie. Ornithology are: in the Zoological Society s Transactions (vii. p. 465), " On the Dermal and Visceral Structures of the Kagn, Sun-Bittern, and Boatbill"; in the same Society s Proceedings (1871, p. 647) "Addi tional Notice concerning the Powder-Downs of Rhinochetus jubatus," (1872, p. 664) "On the Skeleton of Todus with remarks as to its Allies," (1879, p. 552) "On the Skeleton and Lineage of Frcgilupus varius" ; in The Ibis (1872, p.262) " On the genus Col his," (1872, p. 383) " Motmots and their affinities," (1873, p. 181) "Relationships of the Upupidce." 3 Garrod s Scientific Pa2)ers have been collected and published in a memorial volume, edited by Forbes. There is therefore no need to dve a list of them here. Fcrbes s papers are to be edited by Prof. F. J. iiull.