Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/46

 36 ORNITHOLOGY Tinamomorphsp. Turniconiorplia-. 1 1 Charodriomorphe. Alectoromorpliae. 1 CVcomorplue. Geranomorphep. 1 PtlTOClO- ralnmedca. morplisB. Sphenisco- morpha?. Actomorplur. Periatero niorplise. Clienoinorplm. Hetero- AmphimorpliiE. morplia;. I

PelargomorphsB. Psittaco- Corey RO- JEgitho- Dysporo- morphce ....morphie. gnathse. morphse. The above scheme, in Prof. Huxley s opinion, nearly re- j tresents the affinities of the various Carinate groups, the great difficulty being to determine the relations to the rest of the Coccygomorphy, Psittacomorphse, and jEgithognathx, which he indicated &quot; only in the most doubtful and hypothetic fashion. &quot; Almost simultaneously with this he expounded more particularly before the Zoological Society, in whose Proceedings (1868, pp. 294-319) his results were soon after published, the groups of which he believed the Alectoromorpkx to be composed and the relations to them of some outlying forms usually regarded as Gallina ceous, the Turnicidx and Pteroclidas, as well as the singular HOACTZIX (vol. xii. p. 28), for all three of which he had to institute new groups the last forming the sole representa tive of his Heteromorphte. More than this, he entered upon their Geographical Distribution, the facts of which important subject are here, almost for the first time, since the attempt of Blyth already mentioned, 1 brought to bear practically on Classification, as has been previously hinted (BIRDS, vol. iii. pp. 736, 737) ; but, that subject having been already treated at some length, there is no need to enter upon it here. Nevertheless it is necessary to mention here uhe intimate connexion between Classification and Geographical Dis tribution as revealed by the palseontological researches A. Milne- of Prof. ALPHOXSE MILNE-EDWARDS, whose magnificent Iwards. Qiseaux Fossiles de la France, began to appear in 1867, and was completed in 1871 the more so, since the exigencies of his undertaking compelled him to use materials that had been almost wholly neglected by other investigators. A large proportion of the fossil remains the determination and description of which was his object were what are very commonly called the &quot; long bones, &quot; that is to say, those of the limbs. The recognition of these, minute and fragmentary as many were, and the referring them to their proper place, rendered necessary an attentive study of the comparative osteology and myology of Birds in general, that of the &quot;long bones,&quot; whose sole char acters were often a few muscular ridges or depressions, being especially obligatory. Hence it became manifest that a very respectable Classification can be found in which characters drawn from these bones play a rather important part. Limited by circumstances as is that followed by M. Milne-Edwards, the details of his arrange ment do not require setting forth here. It is enough to point out that we have in his work another proof of the multiplicity of the factors which must be taken into consideration by the systematist, and another proof of the fallacy of trusting to one set of characters alone. But this is not the only way in which the author has rendered service to the advanced student of Orni- 1 It is true that from the time of Buffon, though lie scorned any regular Classification, Geographical Distribution had been occasionally he-Id to have something to do with systematic arrangement ; but the way in which the two were related was never clearly put forth, though people who could read between the lines might have guessed the secret from Darwin s Journal of Researches, as well as from his introduction to the Zfiolfir/y of the &quot;7&amp;gt;f/&amp;lt;7/ &quot; Vnyaije. thology. The unlooked-for discovery in France of re mains which he has referred to forms now existing it is true, but existing only in countries far removed from Europe, forms such as Collocalia, Leptosomus, Psittacus, iSerpentariw, and Trogon, is perhaps even more suggestive than the finding that France was once inhabited by forms that are wholly extinct, of which, as has been already mentioned (BIRDS, vol. iii. pp. 730, 731), in the older formations there is abundance. Unfortunately none of these, however, can be compared for singularity with ArcJi&opteryx or with some American fossil forms next to be noticed, for their particular bearing on our knowledge of Ornithology will be most conveniently treated here. In November 1870 Prof. MARSH, by finding the im- im perfect fossilized tibia of a Bird in the Middle Cretaceous shale of Kansas, began a series of wonderful discoveries which will ever be associated with his name, 2 and, making us acquainted with a great number of forms long since vanished from among the earth s inhabitants, has thrown a comparatively broad beam of light upon the darkness that, broken only by the solitary spark emitted on the recognition of Archesopteryx, had hitherto brooded over our knowledge of the genealogy of Birds, and is even now for the most part palpable. Subsequent visits to the same part of North America, often performed under circum stances of discomfort and occasionally of danger, brought to this intrepid and energetic explorer the reward he had so fully earned. Brief notices of his spoils appeared from time to time in various volumes of the American Journal of Science and Arts (Silliman s), but it is unnecessary here to refer to more than a few of them. In that Journal for May 1872 (ser. 3, iii. p. 360) the remains of a large swimming Bird (nearly 6 feet in length, as afterwards appeared) having some affinity, it was thought, to the Colymbidge, were described under the name of Hesperomis regalis, and a few months later (iv. p. 344) a second fossil Bird from the same locality was indicated as Ichthyornis dispar from the Fish-like, biconcave form of its vertebra^. Further examination of the enormous collections gathered by the author, and preserved in the Museum of Yale College at New Haven in Connecticut, shewed him that this last Bird, and another to which he gave the name of Apatornis, had possessed well-developed teeth implanted in sockets in both jaws, and induced him to establish (v. pp. 161, 162) for their reception a &quot;Subclass&quot; Odontor- nithes and an Order Ickthyarnithes, Two years more and the originally found Ilesperornis was discovered also to have teeth, but these were inserted in a groove. It was accordingly regarded as the type of a distinct Order Odontolcae (x. pp. 403-408), to which were assigned as other characters vertebrae of a saddle-shape and not biconcave, a keelless sternum, and wings consisting only of the humerus. In 1 880 Prof. Marsh brought out a grand volume, Odontornithes, being a monograph of the extinct toothed Birds of North America. Herein remains, attri buted to no fewer than a score of species, which were referred to eight different genera, are fully described and sufficiently illustrated, and, instead of the ordinal name Ichthyornithcs previously used, that of Odontotormse was proposed. In the author s concluding summary he remarks on the fact that, while the Odontolcse, as exhibited in ffespefornit, had teeth inserted in a continuous groove a low and generalized character as shewn by Reptiles, they had, however, the strongly differentiated saddle-shaped vertebrae such as all modern Birds possess. On the other hand the Odontotormse, as exemplified in Ichthyornis, having the primitive biconcave vertebrae, yet possessed the highly 2 It will of course be needless to remind the general zoologist of Prof. Marsh s no less wonderful discoveries of wholly unlookud-for types of Reptiles and Mammals.