Systematist synonyms

It is quite possible that the characters of the nematocysts might afford data as useful to the systematist in this group as do the spicules of sponges, for instance.

Premising then that the chief characters assigned by this systematist to his several groups are drawn from almost all parts of the structure of birds, and are supplemented by some others of their more prominent peculiarities, we present the following abstract of his scheme:-2 I.

Moreover, as Professor Burmeister states in his preface, Nitzsch by no means regarded the natural sequence of groups as the highest problem of the systematist, but rather their correct limitation.

While furnishing - almost unconsciously, however - additional evidence for overthrowing that classification, there is, nevertheless, no attempt made to construct a better one; and the elaborate tables of dimensions, both absolute and proportional, suggestive as is the whole tendency of the author's observations, seem not to lead to any very practical result, though the systematist's need to look beneath the integument, even in parts that are so comparatively little hidden as birds' feet, is once more made beyond all question apparent.

Herein he divided the class A y es into two subclasses, to which he applied the names of Insessores and Grallatores (hitherto used by their inventors Vigors and Illiger in a different sense), in the latter work relying chiefly for this division on characters which had not before been used by any systematist, namely that in the former group monogamy generally prevailed and the helpless nestlings were fed by their parents, while the latter group were mostly polygamous, and the chicks at birth were active and capable of feeding themselves.