574 CRIBRATORES. SIFTERS. 



elongated, elliptical body, a moderate neck, large but com- 

 pressed head, longish bill, depressed, and rather narrow or 

 not very broad, with short or moderate feet, of which the 

 hind toe has merely a compressed rudimentary expansion 

 beneath, not sufficiently developed to be called a web. They 

 are radicivorous, graminivorous, granivorous, insectivorous, 

 reptilivorous ; in short, some of them eat almost anything 

 eatable. 



The Pochards, or Diving Ducks, Fuligulin^e, differ from 

 the rest, which never dive in search of food, in being habitual 

 divers. They have the body shorter, broad, being flattened 

 or depressed ; the neck short, the head large, the bill gene- 

 rally short and broad or thick, the feet very short and placed 

 farther back, the hind toe with a lobiform membrane. They 

 feed on mollusca, Crustacea, and fish, occasionally only on 

 vegetable matters. 



A " typical " Goose seems quite distinct from a typical 

 Duck; yet not even their skeletons shew very tangible 

 characters. 



In the Geese the skeleton is strongly constructed. The 

 skull rather broad, the interorbital space wide, the max- 

 illary bones large and stout, the lower strong, both concave 

 and rounded at the end. The neck is long, with eighteen 

 vertebras ; the dorsal ten, the lumbar and sacral sixteen, 

 the coccygeal seven. The pelvis long and of moderate 

 breadth, its bones leaving two large oblong interspaces ; 

 the pubes slender, enlarged and decurved toward the end. 

 There are ten flattened ribs, the first not reaching the 

 sternum, and both it and the three last without processes. 

 The sternum large, broad, with a prominent carina, its pos- 

 terior margin even, with two deep notches. The clavicles 

 stout, short, moderately spreading ; the furcula strong, wide, 

 and much curved. The bones of the wing stout, the humerus 

 and cubitus of equal length, the pollex tapering, the meta- 

 carpals united at both ends, two digits, the outer with two 

 bones, the inner of one. The femur stout and short ; the 

 tibia long, with the fibula partially united ; the tarsus mode- 

 rate, broad below ; the digits with two, three, four, five 

 phalanges. 



