316 Annals ok the Carnegie Museum. 



Neither the ulna nor the radius offer us with any unusual characters 

 beyond what we find in the bones among the larger-sized waders. 

 Each is slightly bowed from end to end along the continuity of the 

 ghaft ; particularly is this true of the radius, where the character is 

 pretty strongly marked. This latter bone is somewhat peculiar in 

 having its entire shaft very much flattened upon its entire anconal sur- 

 face, a feature not especially noticeable in either Bernicia or Plegadis. 

 On the shaft of the ulna the row of tubercles for the quill butts of the 

 secondary feathers, so conspicuous in many birds, are here apparently 

 quite absent. 



The ^//^;v/of the radius has a length of about 19.8 centimeters, and 

 the ulna measures a few millimeters more than 20. In the wrist the 

 two usual carpal elements of the Flamingo present the common ornithic 

 characters, and these depart hardly at all from the corresponding ones 

 as we find them in th& iilnarc and radiale in the carpus of Bernicia. 

 I have compared these two birds, articular facet for articular facet, 

 border for border, fossa for fossa, and in general form I find them 

 to be almost identically alike. In speaking of the skeleton of the 

 pectoral limb of Pliecnicopterus ignipa/liatus, Parkei has said "On 

 the whole, this is a very perfectly formed wing, and is more like that 

 of an Ibis than that of a Goose, as, indeed, is much of the structure 

 oi Plui'nicppterus. ^ At one time I was inclined to concur in this opin- 

 ion, but upon carefully comparing the skeleton of manus in P. ruber, 

 Bernicia canadensis and in Plegadis guaranna, my former view of the 

 subject has somewhat changed, modified as it has been by the exami- 

 nation of better material. 



P. ruber has a carpo-inefacarpus that measures about 9.5 cm. in ex- 

 treme length, whereas that bone in B. canadensis usually measures a lit- 

 tle less than 9 cm. In the Flamingo the long axis of the first metacarpal 

 makes but a very slight angle with the long axis of the second or index 

 metacarpal ; in the Goose the same angle is more obtuse. In this 

 little point the Flamingo and the Ibis agree, but in the Ibis the shaft 

 of the third metacarpal is obviously bowed, while in both Goose and 

 Flamingo it is nearly parallel with the shaft of the second metacarpal. 

 At the distal extremity of the bone the fusion between the shafts of 

 the second and third metacarpal extends further proximad in Plmni- 

 copterus than it does in either Bernicia or Plegadis, and I observe this 

 is also true of P. ignipalliatus, judging from Parker's figure in the article 



' Ibis, April, 1889, p. 185. Science, Vol. XIV, No. 347, pp. 224, 225. 



