q5 SuuFEhiJT, Osteology of Harris's Coymoranl. [,Jt"oci. 



quite unnecessary to enter, to any great extent, upon the subject 

 here. 



Nannoptenini presents the same modifications ot the three 

 cervicals in question, only better marked than we find them in 

 P. urile or P. carbo and others. In this eighth vertebra of 

 Harris's Cormorant the rudimentary beginning of the carotid canal 

 is in evidence ; it is large and comj^letely formed in ninth to the 

 fourteenth inclusive, but in none is it quite closed in the median 

 line below. In the 15th cervical its place is taken by a long, 

 straight haemal spine. A similar spine is found in all the rest of 

 the vertebrae of the pelvis, and even here the character still 

 obtains, though the process is shorter, while it becomes shorter 

 and shorter in the next two following pelvic (dorso-lumbar) 

 vertebrae, to be lost entirely on the next succeeding one (27th). 

 There is a stumpy httle neural spine on the 14th cervical ; it is 

 double the size on the 15th, and increases in size thereafter to 

 the 19th vertebra, where it assumes the big quadrate form it has 

 throughout the dorsal vertebrae. 



The pleurapophyses of the 8th to the nth inclusive are long 

 and moderately slender, the longest pair being on the ninth 

 cervical. Ventrally, the centra of the i6th to the i8th cervical 

 inclusive are very broad and flat, while they promptly change 

 in the dorsal series to become markedly compressed from side to 

 side. 



The facets for the ribs are extensive, considerably elevated, 

 and each pair is strictly confined to the vertebra to which it 

 belongs ; in other words, there are no demifacets as we find in 

 some of the vertebrata elsewhere. On the under side of a trans- 

 verse process, extended between the facet on the centrum of the 

 same vertebra to the facet at the outer end of the transverse 

 process, there is a very prominent raised ridge, so that, when the 

 rib is duly articulated there, this ridge practically comes in contact 

 with the entire dorsal surface of its neck, and thus greatly 

 increases the solidarity of its articulation with the ventral side 

 of the transverse process on either side. Two such similar ridges 

 are provided for the two pairs of ribs that articulate beneath the 

 ilia of the pelvis. 



Nineteenth and twentieth vertebrae fuse together in P. auritus, 

 as they do in Harris's Comiorant. but not so in P. urile or in P. 

 carbo. They also remain distinct in P. pelagicus, but not in P. 

 punctatiis. To a certain extent, for any particular species, age 

 would have something to do with this, and it is possible that in 

 old, or very old, Cormorants of any species we might find those 

 two vertebrae firmly fused into one bone. 



Dr. Gadow points out in his paper {loc. cit., p. 174) that 

 the three specimens of Harris's Cormorant examined by 

 him " possess, like other Cormorants, 18 cervical and 2 

 cervico-dorsal vertebra, and the 29th forms the last pre- 

 acetabular buttress"; and further on, on the same page, he 

 states : — " The two sacral vertebra; of P. harrisi seem to be the 



