Il6 Shufeldt, Material fur a Study of the Megapodiidce. [^^^ "^^, 



the posterior or external angular process is shorter, broader, and 

 less falcate ; here again we see a falling-off from the type." 



Of the tongue-bones he says that " the os hyoides — the greater 

 part of the skeleton of the last poststomal, and the first post- 

 cephalic arch — is strictly typical. The arrested hyoid cornua 

 are cartilaginous for the anterior third and a little behind ; they 

 lie in the tongue ; the hasi-, iiro-, and double thyro-hydils have their 

 tips cartilaginous, as in the Fowl" (p. 164). 



The Trunk Skeleton, ]'ertebral Column. Ribs, and Pelvis. — In his 

 work on the " Brush-Turkey " just quoted, Professor Parker did 

 not pay much attention to any part of the osteology beyond the 

 skull, and he says on page 164 : — " I shall not go so much into 

 detail in describing the osteology of the body of Talegallits ; for, 

 in the first place, those modifications of structure which indicate 

 the curious affinities of outlying and aberrant groups of birds 

 often cluster most within the cephahc structures ; and, secondly, 

 I wish to do something to extend the knowledge of this most 

 important branch of animal morphology, the structure of the 

 skull. At present the unknown is a forest, the known a very 

 inconsiderable clearing." 



Taken as a whole, the trunk skeleton of the Nicobar Megapode 

 is in every way a Gallinaceous one. To be sure, it has numerous 

 characters peculiarly more or less its own, but they never consist 

 of more than modifications of what is to be found in any case in 

 the skeletons of other members of this assemblage. 



Sixteen stout vertebrse are to be found in the cervical division 

 of the spinal column. The fourteenth of the chain supports a pair 

 of free ribs, which attain a length each of two centimeters, and are 

 entirely devoid of unciform appendages. On the fifteenth cervical 

 the ribs are nearly double the length, in each case, of those on the 

 fourteenth, while there appears to be, on either one of them, a 

 rudimentary apophysis representing an epipleural process. 



Passing to the sixteenth cervical, w^e find it thoroughly 

 co-ossified with the first dorsal vertebra, which last, in turn, is 

 solidly united with the second and third dorsals (fig. 28, 

 Plate XIIL) 



At the other extremity of the cervical series of vertebrae it is 

 to be noted that the atlas has rather a broad neural arch, antero- 

 posteriorly, and that its centrum is deeply notched above to 

 receive the odontoid process of the axis. On either side it is 

 notched, in order to make room for the passage of the vertebral 

 artery. 



There is a blunt neural spine on the first four cervical vertebrae, 

 while in the succeeding ones, to include the fourteenth, this process 

 is quite rudimentary. In the fifteenth it is well developed and 

 as high as one of the dorsals : in the sixtcentli it is co-equal with 

 one of the latter, Ix-ing tliorouglily fused with the neural spine of 

 the first dorsal vertebra. 



Axis vertebra has a wi'll-developed hctmal spine, and so has 

 the third vertebra ; but in the fourth it is rudimentary, while it 



