BY C. W. DE VIS. 443 



Distal end of an ulna. This bone can only belong to the 

 Anseres or to the Herodiones, and as it corresponds in size with 

 the metacarpal preceding and does not protest against entering 

 the same genus and species with it, such may be its domicile for 

 the present. 



Platalea subtenuis, n.s. (PI. xxiv., fig. 5a and 5b). 



Proximal two-thirds of a right femur with the trochanter edges 

 abraded. No subtrochanterian pneumatic foramen ; two minute 

 posterior foramina ; trochanter narrow, continuous with extensor 

 cruris ridge ; space between trochanter and neck narrow ; neck 

 but slightly contracted ; head but little expanded ; shaft feebly 

 curved, subcylindrical. After rejecting in our search for the 

 living kindred of the bird now under scrutiny those femurs 

 wherein the subtrochanterian foramen is present, the Falconidce, 

 Gouridce, Olididce, Xenorhynchus, &c, also those of the Passeres 

 which possess a large posterior foramen, we find our means of 

 discrimination almost restricted to the contour of the proximal 

 surface of the bone and the relative position of the extensor cruris 

 ridge. Those bird femurs, which on a fore end view are separable 

 from the rest on account of the surface being in the first place 

 subelongate, and in the next neither approximately hour-glass 

 shaped nor considerably narrower immediately behind the head, 

 in other words, devoid of a sudden contraction at any point in the 

 trochanterian region, which are at the same time nearly straight 

 in the proximal half of the shaft, and are comparable with the 

 fossil in size, are to be found among the ibises and spoonbills, 

 and not elsewhere. We may therefore conclude with some confi- 

 dence that our fossil is derived from the Plataleidce. But beyond 

 this progress becomes hazardous, the fact being that the femurs of 

 Platalea and Carphibis, indistinguishable generically from the 

 fossil, are equally so one from another. Were they not from 

 living birds, they would indeed be attributed to the same species 

 of the same genus, a state of things, by the way, issuing a caution 

 against hasty identification of fossil with recent bones of this class ; 

 yet, as the chances are very great against so close an approximation 





