318 Annals of the Carnegie Museum. 



Of tlie Pelvic Limb. — This species of Flamingo has, comparatively 

 speaking, a short and very bulky femur. Owing to its high pneu- 

 matic condition, the dried bone is extremely light. It measures in 

 total length 9.1 cm., while a femur of Bernicla canadensis I find to 

 be 7.8 cm. long, and Xh^Xoi Plegadis giiaranna 5.2 centimeters. The 

 trochanter major is conspicuously developed, being broad externally, 

 where it is powerfully marked by muscular lines and depressions, 

 while antero-internally it curls upwards and forwards so as to be reared 

 above the extensive articular surface on the summit of the bone. The 

 globular femoral head is large, markedly sessile, with the diffuse ex- 

 cavation for the round ligament quite shallow. Turning to Bernicla 

 we at once see that the proximal end of the femur is very different 

 from this, for the caput femoris is relatively smaller, and the fossa for 

 the ligamentum teres even less deep ; indeed, so shallow as hardly to 

 attract attention at all. But a still greater difference is seen in the 

 trochanter major, for in this Goose that process is a quite inconspicu- 

 ous feature, not rising above the summit of the bone, and being but 

 very slightly produced anteriorly. In Piegadis the trochanter major 

 is sharp and thin edged, and by no means well-developed — in fact 

 the femur of this Ibis differs very considerably from that of the Fla- 

 mingo in most of its characters. Passing to the shaft of the bone in 

 PJiKJiicoptenis we find it to be nearly cylindrical dcwiX straight, with the 

 surface exhibiting a peculiar roughness, and the chief muscular lines 

 powerfully marked. Especially is this latter the case on the posterior 

 aspect where they run down to the internal condyle. At the distal 

 end, the condylar protuberances are particularly massive and bulky, 

 with their anterior crests conspicuously developed, wide apart, and 

 nearly parallel to each other. All this gives a spacious " rotular 

 channel," which below merges into the intercondyloid fossa. The 

 long axes of the anterior condylar crests each make an angle with the 

 long axis of the shaft. These angles are very nearly of the same 

 aperture, owing as we have said, to the crests being nearly parallel, 

 and they open, widely obtuse, internally. In other words, when the 

 femur is articulated /// situ, the condylar end of the bone exhibits a 

 bending towards the mesial plane of the trunk. The external condyle 

 has double the bulk of the internal one, is lower on the shaft, and 

 presents an immense fibular cleft posteriorly with its inner part greatly 

 produced backwards. Comparatively speaking, the popliteal depres- 

 sion is not so well marked as it is in Bernicla, there being scarcely 



