398 ON SOME POIXTS IN THE ANATOMY OF PIGEONS, 



characteristics (with a modification to be noticed presently) I 

 have merely to repeat, seem, taken together, to characterise the 

 family, and if Mr. Porbes and Dr. G-adow will take the trouble 

 to make a really careful dissection of the common Pigeon, they 

 will find it necessary to modify some of their statements. The 

 authors alluded to state that of the five points " one is totally 

 incorrect and three others, viz. nos. 3, 4, and 5, are not jharacteritic 

 of the Columbidse." 



. 1. The absence of a posterior belly of the latissimus dorsi. 



In a short note on Tiiracana and ^dirhinus (Proc. Linn. 

 Soc. N.S.W., Vol. vii., p. 115) I have pointed out that in the 

 fruit-pigeons the arrangement of this muscle is normal. Dr. 

 Gadow says " Mr. Porbes and I, on examining the following 

 birds, which were at hand — Carpliophaga, Chalcophaps and Columha 

 — found this muscle consisting of two bellies, the posterior one 

 being just as well developed in these Pigeons as in Astur, arising 

 from the anterior margin of the ileum and from the last dorsal 

 vertebrae, and inserted by means of a tendon below that of the 

 anterior belly into the humerus. Throughout their whole length 

 the two bellies were connected by a fascia." This is precisely 

 the arrangement found in JEdirJimics and Ptilopus, as in birds 

 generally ; that it occurs also in Chalcopliops, as well as in the 

 fruit- eating Carphophaga is a fact new to me — never having had 

 a specimen of the former genus to dissect. But it surprises me 

 greatly to be told that Mr. Porbes and Dr. Gadow found it 

 occurring in Columha. The posterior belly is entirely absent in 

 Columha livia and C. cenas, in JSLacropygia and Turaccena. I have 

 carefully verified its absence in so many dozens of specimens, 

 chiefly of the two first-named forms, that I cannot but entertain 

 grave doubts of the correctness either of Dr. Gadow's and Mr. 

 Porbes' s observation, or of the determination of the specimen of 

 Columha which they say they examined. I must confess to having 

 made a too hasty inference in this particular in regarding as a 

 characteristic of the Pigeons as a group what I afterwards found 



