88 The Philippine Journal of Science 1919 
frontal shield in the specimens of P. pulverulentus extends much farther 
backward than is represented by Newton for either Notornis or for Por- 
phyrio. If you happen to have a copy of Egyptian Birds, by Charles 
Whymper, London, Adam and Charles Black, 1909, you will find, facing 
page 168, some nice studies of Porphyrio madagascariensis that might pass 
for the Philippine Porphyrio if done in black and white. 
In times past, in various journals here and in Europe, I have 
published complete accounts of the skeletons of all the American 
Gruide, or cranes; a full description of the skeleton of Aramus 
vociferans; and the same of the majority of our Rallide, or 
rails, gallinules, and coots. These papers and monographs are 
now so well known to ornithotomists and to many ornithologists, 
that it will not be necessary to cite them by title in the present 
connection. This also applies to such descriptions as I have 
published on the osteology of paludicoline birds of the Old World 
and elsewhere. 
At the present writing I have been unable to obtain the 
skeleton of an American gallinule; so I shall compare the bones 
of the Philippine giant gallinule with the corresponding ones in 
the skeleton of a coot (Fulica americana). Such material has 
kindly been loaned me by the Division of Birds of the United 
States National Museum. (No. 19710, adult male ?) 
There are but few marked differences to be discovered when 
we come to compare the skeletons of the soras, the cranes, the 
short-billed rails, the gallinules, and the coots, or other closely 
allied forms in the same group. Still there are some interesting 
points to be noticed along such lines, and they are of generic 
as well as specific significance. Most of them, it would seem, 
pertain to the skull rather than to any other part of the skeleton. 
OSTEOLOGY OF PORPHYRIO PULVERULENTUS 
The skull—As compared with Fulica, there is a general lack 
of pneumaticity in the entire skeleton of this big gallinule, which 
is corroborative evidence that the demand for its being a good 
flier is considerably less; moreover, it points to the fact that 
its relation to Notornis is much nearer than any of its con- 
geners of the allied groups of the Rallide. This reduction of 
the amount of air gaining access to the inner recesses of the 
bones is well exemplified in the skull, as compared with that 
part of the skeleton in the coot; consequently we find it to be, 
in the gallinule, thicker, denser, darker, and proportionately 
heavier in comparison—a condition which is largely extended 
to other parts of the skeleton, as will be seen further on in this 
description. 
