Osteology of Aramus scolopaceus. 53 



the first phalanx of the second digit is distinctly longer than 

 that of the third digit. In Balearica and Grus, on the other 

 handj the first phalanx of the third digit is distinctly the 

 longest as well as the broadest. 



In the foregoing pages I have added a few fresh details to 

 our knowledge of Aramus, which shew how very closely 

 related the genus is to the other Gruidce, and which help to 

 forbid its separation as the type of a family or subfamily 

 distinct from them. The most important of these further 

 likenesses between Aramus and Grus, &c., concern the ver- 

 tebrae and the vestiges of an excavation upon the front edge 

 of the sternum (see above, fig. 3, p. 47), which is to be com- 

 pared to the deep furrow which in the genus Grus\o(\ges the 

 windings of the trachea ; on the contrary, some few of the 

 fresh facts recorded in the present communication serve to 

 distinguish Aramus from other Cranes. Of these differences 

 a large proportion serve at the same time to cement more 

 closely a special alliance between Aramus and the at least 

 equally aberrant Crane Balearica. Such likenesses as are 

 shown by the great breadth of the pelvis in the two genera, 

 by the proportions of the segments of the hind limb, by the 

 absence of the extension of the squamosal so as to conceal 

 the quadrate, and the overlapping of the coracoids at their 

 articulation with the sternum, seem to be so far genuine points 

 of likeness which bear no obvious relation to adaptation to 

 similar needs ; but they appear to[be too few and of insufficient 

 importance to afford a base for any claim to very near 

 affinity between the two widely separated genera. There are, 

 however, a number of other points of resemblance which are 

 more striking : these are the loss of even the rudiments of 

 the basipterygoid processes, the slightly grooved anterior edge 

 of the sternum with its anterior foramen, and the more 

 complete fusion of the first to the third dorsal vertebrie ; 

 but these features of likeness between Aramus and Balearica 

 might be interpreted as simply a parallel advance in each 

 case from the structure of the more generalized Cranes of the 

 genus Grus. Fiirbriuger considers that the genus Aru)nus, 



