8 THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 



group Cecomorplise of his Sehizognathous series. Respecting their palate we read — 

 " The Procellariidse differ from the families which have just been enumerated 

 (Gulls, Divers, Grebes, Auks, and Penguins) in the great expansion of the maxillo- 

 palatines which become thick and spongy, and so closely approach the middle line that, 

 in the Albatrosses, only a very narrow cleft is left on each side of the vomer. The front 

 part of the vomer itself is much more strongly bent downwards than in the Gulls ; and 

 the ascending process of the palatine bone is greatly produced, and becomes anchylosed 

 with the vomer. Procellaria gigas [i.e., Ossifraga~\ holds a sort of intermediate place 

 between the Gulls and the Albatrosses, the maxillo-palatines being less swollen, and the 

 clefts between them and the vomer far larger than in Diomedea. In this species again the 

 basipterygoid processes are present, though I have not been able to observe them in 

 other Procellariidse " (loc. cit., pp. 430, 431). [As regards this last sentence, as will be seen 

 below, such basipterygoid processes are the rule and not the exception in this group.] 

 In illustration of these remarks, views of the palate of " Procellaria " gigantea and 

 Diomedea exulans are given. 



Of the Cecomorphge, " the Procellariidse are aberrant forms, inclining towards the 

 Cormorants and Pelicans amongst the Desmognathae " (loc. cit., p. 458). 



1871. G. R. Gray, in the Hand-list of Birds, 1 places the Procellariidse between the 

 Uriidse and the Laridse in his order Anseres. They are divided into three sub- 

 families, corresponding to those already adopted by Bonaparte and Coues. 



J. Reinhardt, in the same year, in his paper on the " Os crochu," or uncinate bone, in 

 the skull of birds, 2 records its presence in nearly all the genera of this family that he has 

 examined. In a note on p. 339 he corrects Professor Huxley's statement as to the usual 

 absence of basipterygoid facets in the Petrels, such being only absent in the Albatrosses 

 and Procellarime (" Stormsvalerne "), present in all the rest. 



1872. Carl T. Sundevall 3 makes the Tubinares the fourth cohort of his order 

 Natatores. He adopts the same three sub-families as Bonaparte, Coues, and Gray. 



1873. Reinhardt describes 4 and figures two peculiar ossicles, of the nature of 

 sesamoids, developed at the elbow-joint of these birds in the tendon of origin of the 

 extensor metacarpi radialis longior. The existence of such an ossicle in the genus 

 Puffinus had already been described by Meckel, 5 and Reinhardt finds two similar ones 

 developed in the Albatrosses, as well as in the genera (Estrelata, Puffinus, Majaqueus, and 

 Adamastor of the Procellariinse. In (Estrelata fidiginosa and bulweri, Diomedea 



1 Loc. cit., vol. iii. p. 102. 



2 Om en hidtil ukjendt Knogle i Hovedskallen hos Turakoerne (Musophagides, Sundev.) med nogle Bemaerkninger 

 om de lignende Knogler hos andre Fuglefaruilier ; Videnskab. Medd. Naturh. For. Kjobenhavn, 1871, pp. 326-341, 

 pi. vii. 



3 Metliodi naturalis avium disponendarum tentamen, Stockholm, 1872, pp. 140-143. 



4 Om Vingens anatomiske Bygning hos Storrnfugle-Familien (Procellaridse s. Tubinares), I.e., 1873, pp. 123-138; 

 also Gervais' Journal de Zoologie, vol. iii. pp. 139-144. 1874. 



5 Traite general, &c, vol. iii. p. 144, Paris, 1829. 



