In the Certhiidæ, Certhia familiaris mexicana becomes C. f. alticola, and C. f. montana and C. f. occidentalis are added as new subspecies.

Among the Nuthatches and Tits (Parida) the following additions and changes are to be noted.

Finally, among the family Turdida, we have:

I am now prepared to present some comparisons with respect to the numbers of species and subspecies in 1886 and 1895, and these may be best shown again by means of a Table, as follows:

This table will go to show that taking the species and subspecies together in 1886, they amounted to 947, while in 1895 there were no less than 1062. In substracting the number of species recorded in 1886 from those in 1895, we find that there has been a gain of 17 species, and in dealing with the subspecies in the same manner, we find that there has been a gain of 98 subspecies. A study of this table is interesting in other ways, as the making of similar comparisons of any single group, or those groups exhibiting the greatest increase and the causes therefor; but all such data can be easily appreciated by the reader from what has been given above, and my space will not admit of enlarging upon it here.

For a moment we may now turn to the "Hypothetical Lists " of the two editions of the work I have under consideration. In 1886 there were 26 species and subspecies relegated to its hypothetical list, ranging from 1 to 5 for the families in which they occurred. In 1895, Diomedea exulans is seen to be added

to the number, while Chen cærulescens is considered to belong to our avifauna, and has therefore been added to the list of 1895. The Swallow-tailed Gull, given as Creagrus furcatus in 1886, is now Xema furcata, and nine examples of it are said to be known to science, instead of only three, as reported in 1886. Numenius arquatus and Chordeiles v. sennetti are also added to the hypothetical list of 1895, while Buteo fuliginosus is ignored entirely.

Coming at last to the "List of Fossil Birds of North America," we find that as compared with the existing species, a greater number has been added to those previously known than there has been to the list of living birds. In 1886 there were 46 species of fossil birds reported, while in 1895 there were 64 upon the record. No doubt there are others that should have been added to these, overlooked by the Committee, as, for example, the rail-like bird called Crecoides osbornii Shufeldt, from the Upper Cenozoic of the staked plains of Texas. Marsh increased the list of Cretaceous Birds by the addition of three species, and the Tertiary Birds by one species, while Shufeldt added no less than fourteen new species of fossil birds as belonging to this latter geological horizon.

To this list should also have been added those belonging to the "Recent Era," as, for example, Plautus impennis-the Great Auk-and Camptolaimus labradorius-the Pied Duck. Of the first named species there is an abundance of subfossil material in existence, and of the latter there are doubtless bones to be found in the dried skins of specimens in museums and elsewhere. Both birds are quite as extinct as is the famous Jurassic bird, the Archaeopteryx of the Solenhofen States of Bavaria.

But the addition of new birds to the avifauna of any country is by no means all there is to ornithology. Nor does the science see its end when these new forms have been described, figured and printed in an official list. The importance of giving a new bird a name, recording its superficial characters, and defining its geographical distribution is not to be underrated, the more especially so as all this greatly helps those who are engaged with the science of their morphology, their taxonomy, and their present affinities and past origin. One of the chief

aims of ornithology is to establish the true relations of existing and extinct forms of birds to each other, and to other groups of animals that are either to be found living at the present time, or else have existed during past ages of the earth's history. In other words, the true classification of birds is to be sought for, and ornithology in this sees its most difficult problem and its final goal.

But the knowledge of the origin of this most perplexing group of vertebrates, their evolution, and our power to correctly classify them can only come to us in one way, and that is through a complete understanding of their structure, and a comprehension of the anatomy of those groups more or less nearly related to them. Other departments, however, can lend great assistance here, and the avian taxonomist can have much light thrown upon his arduous task through the revelations of researches in the fields of physiology, of geographical distribution, nidology, paleontology, and other biological sciences.

With these facts before us, it is with no little interest that the taxonomist scans the pages of the second edition of " The A. O. U. Check-List of North American Birds," with the view of ascertaining what evidences there may be in the direction of a better knowledge of the classification of our birds. There may have been some excuse for the numerous symptoms of the somewhat antiquated taxonomy that characterized the arrangement of North American birds in the 1886 edition of the A. O. U. Check-List, but not so this last one, provided we find that the earlier classification has been retained. For, be it known, in the meantime, that is, from 1886 to 1895, the avian morphologists had not been idle. There were very many useful suggestions in the admirable work done by Dr. Stejneger that appeared shortly before the 1886 edition was printed. This was followed, in 1888, by the superb volumes of Fürbringer, with one of the most elaborate classifications of birds the world has ever seen; Seebohm, of England, had done a great deal, while the present writer had published accounts of the osteology of nearly every family of N. American Birds, and Mr. Lucas stands prominent in his excellent anatomical work upon many of the groups. English pens had contributed memoir after

memoir along similar lines, and one has but to turn to the essays and volumes of Newton, Gadow, Beddard, T. J. Parker, Sharpe and many others to appreciate this. But for one to fully know what a deal was done during the nine years I speak of, it is but necessary to read the enthusiastic address of Fürbringer given before the Section for the Anatomy of Birds at the Second International Ornithological Congress, held at Budapesth in 1891. A powerful light has been thrown upon the structure and affinities of the various groups of birds, and has it in any way affected the classification of the 1895 CheckList of North Ameican Birds, that is, in so far as the main groups are concerned? Not in the least. Apart from the addition to the List of the family Cotingida, the taxonomy of the orders and families as given in 1886 are identical with the arrangement reproposed in 1895. For example, we still find the Grebes, Loons and Auks retained together in the Order PYGOPODES, with the first-named separated from the last two by subordinal lines; whereas, Fürbringer, Thompson, Sharpe, myself and others, all of whom have examined the structure of these birds, have shown the affinity existing between the Grebes and Loons, and that these two families are very distinct from the Auks. The Auks, in fact, occupy a group by themselves, and are more nearly related to the Longipennes. Fürbringer separated them very widely from the Grebes and Loons, in which opinion Sharpe and others concur. That the Longipennes and the Limicolæ are akin is now generally recognized by those who have studied the anatomical structure of the members of the two groups, yet in the A. O. U. classification, six entire Orders stand between the Gulls and the limicoline assemblage. Fürbringer makes a "Gens" Laro-Limicolæ, and Sharpe keeps the two groups close together. As long ago as 1867 Professor Huxley clearly showed the osteological agreement between the skull of a Plover and that of a Gull.

That the Fowls (Gallina), Pigeons (Columbæ), Raptorial Birds (Accipitres), Parrots (Psittaci) and the Cuckoos (Coccyges) as groups should stand in lineal series I can well believe-but as Gadow, Hubert Lyman Clark, myself and others have frequently pointed out, the Owls do not belong with the Acci