BY C. W. DE VIS. 441 



needlessly. Little short of the discovery of a complete skeleton, 

 a most unlikely event, would convince us that a wing so strong 

 and a foot so comparatively weak as are indicated by the present 

 humerus and the described metatarse co-existed in the same species 

 of gallinule. 



To difference of transverse proportions we must add no less 

 decided difference in proportionate lengths. The humerus and 

 metatarse of G. tenebrosa are equal in length, whereas the present 

 humerus is shorter than the metatarse of G. strenuipes in the ratio 

 62-5 : 74*0. In brief, it is a fifth shorter and an eighth broader in 

 the shaft than it should be were it derived from G. strenuipes. 



Compared with the humerus of G. tenebrosa, the present bone 

 has, apart from its still superior strength, two good specific 

 characters — one of which consists in a more pronounced curvature 

 of the shaft, the other in a more decided excavation of the antero- 

 interior side of the palmar end of the radial trochlea (PI. xxiv., 

 fig. 3b A). In length the bone does not differ from the humerus 

 of G. tenebrosa. 



PAL^EOPELARGUS, n.g., HERODIONES. 



Distal end of a right " medius " metacarpal in conjunction with 

 that of the " annularis " (PI. xxiv., fig. ia and 46). 



After tabulating the details of form and structure in the 

 articulating surface of this bone in all available genera of birds, 

 comparing the fossil therewith, repeating the process after a 

 considerable interval of time and obtaining at the second trial 

 the same result as before, the writer is led to regard his view of it 

 as an approximation to the truth. 



The following are the characters from which the status of the 

 extinct bird is to be ascertained : — " 



Contour of the articulating surface oblong, elongate, narrow. 

 Facette for the anterior and chief part of the proximal surface of 

 the basal " medius " phalanx narrow and rounded (a form partly 

 due to the abrasion of the edges) ; eminence for posterior concave 

 part of the surface long, oblique, subcrescentic. End of fourth 



