1888.] PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 215 



OBSERVATIONS UPON THE OSTEOLOGY OF THE NORTH AMERI- 

 CAN ANSERES. 



BY DR. R. W. SHUFELDT, U. S. ARMY. 



This well-circumscribed order or group agrees with Huxley's Cheno- 

 morphce, aud eoutaius the Mergansers, Ducks, Geese, and Swans. 



For some time past I have been accumulating the material for a me- 

 moir upon the osteology of the entire group of lamellirostral birds of this 

 country. I still lack, however, quite a number of important forms, which 

 may take more or less time to secure. So that the present memoir must 

 not be considered more than an introduction to the subject, though here 

 it has the claim of introducing a number of drawings of those forms, 

 which can be compared with advantage with other species which I did 

 not happen to have in my possession at the time this was written. 



Much of the anatomy of the anserine birds is known to us already, 

 but that further elucidation in this direction is \ery desirable I hardly 

 think any one will question. Garrod gave the subject no little attention, 

 though he confined himself principally to the condition of the carotids, 

 the presence or absence of certain muscles, and the form of the osseous 

 portions of the air-passages in a number of the rarer types of Ducks. 

 As I have just said, Huxley, in his famous essay upon the Classifica- 

 tion of Birds, created a separate group — the Chenomorphce — to contain, 

 with a few related forms, the Anatidce, a division based upon anatom- 

 ical characters so far as they were known at the time. 



('ones, in 1884, in the second edition of his Key, availing himself of all 

 that was known up to that period which could be successfully utilized 

 in classification, awards the anserine birds the order Lamellirostre.s, di- 

 viding it into the suborder Odontoglossce for the single family of the 

 Flamingoes, and the suborder Anseres to hold the Swans, Geese, 

 Eiver and Sea Ducks, aud the Mergansers, these latter each having a 

 separate subfamily created for it, to wit, The Cygnince, the Anserine?, 

 the Anatince, the Fuligulince, and the Mergince, respectively. Collect- 

 ively these subfamilies constitute the family Anatidce of this author. 

 Some few unimportant changes were made in the American Ornithol- 

 ogists' Union Check-List, but this classification remains substantially 

 the same. 



Even by their external characters, the Swans, Geese, and Ducks, and 

 the more modified Mergansers form a very sharply-defined group of 

 birds, and morphology has made quite clear to us the probable rela- 

 tion the Flamingoes bear to them. So that it is not very likely that 

 further investigations will materially disturb the classification now 

 adopted and 'presented in the Check-List of the American Ornithologists' 



