THE STRUCTURE AND CLASSIFICATION OF BIRDS BY FRANK E. BEDDARD, M.A., FR.S. PROSECTOR AND VICE-SECRETARY OF THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN, AND 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON NEW YORK AND BOMBAY 1898 All rights reserved CO. PREFACE IT was the intention of my predecessor in the office of Prosector to the Zoological Society, the late Professor Garrod, F.R.S., to write a treatise upon bird anatomy. This intention was so far realised that a nearly complete account of the anatomy of the fowl, with the appropriate illustrations, was actually drawn up; it was proposed that this should be followed by a second part, in which the general anatomical characters of the different groups of birds were to be stated. Of this second part I have beside me some thirty sheets of MS. Professor Garrod's successor in the post of Prosector to the Zoological Society, the late Mr. W. A. Forbes, had every intention of finishing this work commenced; but unfortunately death took place before any actual additions had been made to the MS. left by his predecessor. I have, on the kind encouragement of Mr. Sclater, determined to make an attempt to carry out this plan of my two forerunners, and the present volume is the result. It must be admitted that a handbook upon bird anatomy was more wanted at the time that it was first conceived by Mr. Garrod than it is at the present day. Zoologists had then nothing of a general character save the incomplete fragment of Bronn's 'Thierreich' and the sections devoted to bird anatomy in such comprehensive works as those of Meckel and Cuvier. We have now two treatises of firstrate merit, that of Fürbringer and Dr. Gadow's completion of the section Aves' in Bronn's Thierreich.' Professor |