Osteology o/Aramus scolopaceus. S9 



14th instead of the 13th. Moreover, the bifid state of 

 the otherwise unpaired hypapophysis of the succeeding 

 vertebra — i. e., the 15th of the entire series — is more marked 

 than it is in Aramus • this is naturally still more suggestive 

 of the origin of the unpaired hypapophysis from paired 

 catapophyses than is the case of the 14th vertebra of Aramus. 

 In Tetrapterijx (or Anthropoides) parad'isea there are 

 exactly the same number of cervical vertebrae which possess 

 catapophyses as in Grus ca7'unculala, those of the 15th being 

 quite as marked as are those of the 14th. 



Balearica, in the points which are now being dealt with 

 (fig. 1), does not show any special likeness to Aramus; it is 

 indeed a step further on the Crane-side. In this bird there 

 are in all, it will be remembered, 20 cervical vertebrae, instead 

 of the 19 which characterize the more typical Cranes. As 

 the cervical series is thus extended by one vertebra, it is 

 natural to find that the arrangement of the catapophyses 

 corresponds. In Balearica it is thus the 16th vertebra 

 instead of the lath which bears the last pair of catapophyses. 

 There is one remaining feature in the structure of these 

 catapophyses which requires attention and furnishes useful 

 comparisons. In Balearica the first pair of them is upon 

 vertebra 6, as in the case oi Aramus, already stated above. It 

 will be seen, however, immediately, that these catapophyses 

 are not certainly the equivalents of those which lie in Aramus 

 upon the same vertebra. These processes in Balearica lie 

 rather near to the middle ventral line of the centrum ; they 

 are placed behind a very deep ventral fossa which excavates the 

 centrum of this vertebra just behind its surface for articulation 

 with the preceding vertebra. This deep ventral fossa is not 

 to be seen upon the next or upon any of the succeeding 

 cervical vertebrae; there is no differentiation of the anterior 

 from the posterior part of the centrum. In correspondence 

 with, or at any rate associated with, this change in the form 

 of the ventral surface of the centra the catapophyses move 

 away from the position which they occupy on the sixth 

 vertebra ; they move forwards and come to have at the 

 same time a more lateral position, or, to state the matter 



