240 Annals of thk Carnkoif, Museum. 



The upi)er surface of the lower jaiv is siniiliarly sculptured, and we 

 will not refer to the fact again. I'he distal portion of this bone in 

 the Spoonbill is dilated, horizontally flattened, lacking in either con- 

 cavities or convexities, and having a form quite "similar to the ex- 

 panded portion of the distal third of the superior mandible. For 

 their middle third, the mandibular rami are slender, and very much 

 compressed in the vertical direction. On the other hand, their prox- 

 imal extremities are low and transversely compressed, and no ramal 

 vacuity is present in them. The general form of the bone may be 

 said to be U-shaped, but this is to a great extent masked by the distal 

 expansion. The articular ends are decidedly though gradually de- 

 curved, and their distal extremities present the usual ornithic char- 

 acters. Their " cups " are deep ; the inturned processes blunt ; and 

 posteriorly they are somewhat produced and hooked. In this latter 

 l)articular, however, the character it not quite so pronounced as it is 

 in the true Ibises. 



Since writing the above, and upon further investigation, another 

 skull of A. ajaja was discovered in the collections of the Smithsonian 

 Institution, which upon examination was found to be a very old and 

 incomplete one. Such characters as it exhibited agreed in all essential 

 particulars with what has just been given above. The sternum, os 

 furcula, and right scapula, of an adult specimen of a female Ajaja regia 

 from New South Wales, Australia, was also met with in the same col- 

 lection, and these bones were sufficient to show, that in this part of 

 the skeleton at least, Ajaja agreed very closely indeed with the true 

 Ibises, as PlegaiUs and its near allies. The stcniuin in this species is 

 4-notched and lacks a manubrium, and the fare- u la is a broad U-pat- 

 tern, of a typical Ibis character, as is also the scapula. From this it is 

 fair to presume, that in the matter of its trunk skeleton, the Spoonbill 

 probably agrees with those birds. 



Of the Litub-bones : A lot of these, numbered 1504 of the Smith- 

 sonian collection, belonged to a specimen of Ajaja ajaja. They con- 

 sist in a skeleton of the right pectoral limb, perfect all to the poUex 

 digit ; in a skeleton of the left leg below the femur, perfect all to the 

 last joint or two of the outer and middle toes ; and finally, of an im- 

 perfect fibula and tibio-tarsus of the right pelvic limb, the proximal 

 end having been cut away and lost. 



This humerus has an extreme length of 13.5 cm. thus being about 

 one-third larger than that bone as we find it in a male Plegadis guar- 



