were well developed and freely movable, and by the
possession of a long lizard-like tail actually exceeding in length
the remainder of the spinal column. The next group of Ratites,
although it contained only the Ostrich, Rhea, Emu, Cassowary, and
Apteryx, he shewed to be equivalent in anatomical coherence to the
third great group of Carinates, which includes the vast majority of
living birds. In his arrangement of the latter group, he laid most
stress on the characters of the bony structures which form the palate,
and by this simple means was able to lay down clearly at least the
main lines of a natural classification of the group.

Huxley's work upon birds, like his work in many other branches of
anatomy, has been so overlaid by the investigations of subsequent
zooelogists that it is easy to overlook its importance. His employment
of the skeleton as the basis of classification was succeeded by the
work of others who made a similar use of the muscular anatomy, of the
intestinal canal, of the windpipe, of the tendons of the feet, and
many other structures which display anatomical modifications in
different birds. The modern student finds that all these new sets of
facts are much greater in bulk than the work of Huxley, and it is easy
for him to remain in ignorance that they were all suggested and
inspired by the method which Huxley employed. He finds that further
research has supplanted some of Huxley's conclusions, and it is easy
for him to remain in ignorance that the conclusions themselves
suggested the investigations which have modified them. Huxley's
anatomical work was essentially living and stimulating, and too often
it has become lost to sight simply because of the vast superstructures
of new facts to which it gave rise.

Closely associated with vertebrate anatomy is the subject of
geographical distribution. In 1857 the study of this important
department of zooelogy was placed on a scientific basis, practically
for the first time, by a memoir on the geographical distribution of
birds published in the _Journal_ of the Linnaean Society of London. It
was known in a general way that different kinds of creatures were
found in different parts of the world, but little attempt had been
made to map out the world into regions characterised by their animal
and vegetable inhabitants, as the political divisions of the world are
characterised by their different governments and policies. Mr.
Sclater, who two years later beca