40 Annals of the Carnegie Museum. 



though the superior part of each of these bones projects much further 

 from the skull than it does in the Stilt. The Avocet also differs from 

 Hwiaiitflpiis in having a more perfect interorl)ital septum ; in the 

 supra-occipital foramina being circular ; in the vomer being broad and 

 widely forked at its expanded anterior extremity ; in the shallower 

 supra-orl)ital depressions, which in the Avocet merge together in the 

 middle line, and are carried out on the projecting lacrymals. It is 

 scarcely necessary to call attention to the difference in the form of 

 the skeleton of the bills in these two birds. The Avocet stands alone 

 ■with his upturned mandibles, and even the beak of the Stilt is quite 

 uniciue. 



Tlie Skull in the ]]\>odtocks, a/iil in Gallinago. — Although essen- 

 tially limicoline in their general character, the skulls of Scolopax 

 riisticola, Philoliela minor and Gallinago delicafa, and no doubt 

 others of those genera, depart in some very striking particulars from 

 the limicoline skulls we have thus far considered in this paper. 

 Except in point of size there is scarcely any difference between the 

 skulls of the European ^ and American Woodcocks, the former being 

 about one fourth larger. 



In the former the great, capacious and circular orbits, with their 

 raised superior borders, have crowded the greater part of the brain-case 

 downwards and forwards, thus bringing the foramen magnum into the 

 horizontal plane, and the other parts of the skull have the appearance of 

 being moved to the front. All this is also seen in Gallinago, but not 

 quite to such a marked degree. In the Snipe, also, the orbits are more 

 elliptical in outline (Fig. 13, f), and the median, longitudinal crease 

 between them on the superior aspect of the skull, more pronounced. 

 Both Snipes and Woodcocks have the occipital condyle very small and 

 hemispherical in form ; it being sessile in the former, but rather 

 inclined to be pedunculated in the latter. The supra-occipital i)romi- 

 nence is well seen in S. ntsticola, in which species the foramina, one 

 upon either side, are absent, though they are generally found in the 

 American Woodcock, and always in Gallinago. Of a cordate outline, 

 the foramen magnum is of large size in these birds, being as wide in 

 6". riisticola as the basitemporal area in front of it. An osseous septum 

 narium exists in all the birds, being most complete in the Snijje. It 



'1 use the specimen kindly loaned me by Prof. A. Newton, F. R.S. (No. 308) 

 from the cabinets of the zoological collection (osteological department) of the Uni- 

 versity of Cambridge, England. 



