14 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 85 



a migrant during the winter season. It is interesting to observe that 

 the distal ends of two humeri in the Hohnes collection from the west 

 coast dififer decidedly in size, the transverse breadth across the troch- 

 leae in one being 15.8 mm. and in the other 18.2 mm., thus exhibiting 

 dififerences similar to those that mark the larger and smaller modern 

 races. It appears possible that differentiation between these two forms 

 may have occurred in the Pleistocene, though on the other hand these 

 two specimens may be merely extremes of individual variation existing 

 at that time. On this scanty material the writer does not venture to 

 identify the two as belonging certainly to distinct subspecies. 



Family ANHINGIDAE 

 ANHINGA ANHINGA (Linnaeus) 



Snake-bird, water-turkey 

 Plot us anhinga Linnaeus, Syst. Nat., ed. 12, vol. i, 1766, p. 218. 

 The snake-bird is represented by the distal end of a left humerus 



collected in the Number Two bed near Melbourne by Doctor Gidley 



on May 3, 1929. 



This species has not been recorded previously as a fossil. 



Family ARDEIDAE 

 ARDEA HERODIAS Linnaeus 



Great bkie heron 



Ardca hcrodias Linnaeus, Syst. Nat., ed. 10, vol. i, 1758, p. 143. 



The genus Ardca is represented by four cervical vertebrae and 

 two fragmentary metatarsi from Melbourne, collected by Gidley ; by 

 the lower end of a metatarsus and the upper part of a coracoid from 

 the Seminole Field collected by Holmes ; and by the lower end of a 

 tibio-tarsus from Bradenton collected by J. E. Moore. The upper 

 and lower ends of metatarsi and a broken tibio-tarsus are included in 

 collections in the Florida State Geological Survey from the Itchtucknee 

 River, Columbia County. All are referred here to the species hcrodias 

 without consideration of the possible occurrence of the great white 

 heron, Ardca occidcntalis, confined today to southern Florida, since 

 so far as present information goes these two supposed species are 

 indistinguishable in their skeletons. The two specimens from the 

 Seminole Field are larger than any modern bird seen, suggesting that 

 possibly there was a larger heron of this type in existence in the 

 Pleistocene. The differences are shown in the following measure- 



