46 AXNALS OF THE CaRNKCIE MuSEUM. 



vomer in front, and the presence of the supraoccipital foramina in 

 the occii)ut. The glandular depressions above the orbits have disap- 

 peared, and the openings in the interorbital septum are three in num- 

 ber, and smaller. A deep, circumscribed, and obliquely inclined 

 groove is found on the lateral aspect of the skull, back of the entrance 

 of the ear. In Liiiiosa riifa a deep gutter is seen between the orbits 

 on viewing the skull from above. Anteriorly it is bounded by an emi- 

 nence on the premaxillary. The lacrymal is small in all the Godwits, 

 and connects with the ethmoidal wing, as in the Curlews. In this 

 genus Limosa the structure of the superior osseous mandible is much 

 as we find it in Gallinago, as given above. 



I have not examined the skull of the Ruff {P. piigiiax) ; it, how- 

 ever, probably only exhibits the usual limicoline characters, with some 

 slight modifications for that particular species. In writing to Pro- 

 fessor A. Newton for a skeleton he replied to me in a letter of the 27th 

 of November, 1889, and said: "Herewith I send you a sternum of 

 Machetes ; I regret to say that we have no skull. It is a most useful 

 thing to have correspondents who make demands like yours upon us, 

 as thereby we learn our deficiencies. Of course we ought to have at 

 least one skeleton of this form, and I shall made it my business to try 

 to get one next year — but it will not be a very easy matter; the bird 

 is practically extinct in England (/. c., there is only one place known 

 where it still exists, and nothing would tempt me to procure one 

 thence) and is become so rare in Holland that I doubt whether any are 

 now sent to our markets, and I think it must be ten or a dozen years 

 since I have seen one in a poulterer's shop." 



Coviparative AhHcs upon t/ic ReDiaindcr of flie Skeleton I'li the Cur/etus 



a /lit other Foi'iJis. 



There are fifteen vertebrse in the cervical portion of the spinal 

 column of N. lougirostris. The only other complete skeleton I have 

 of a Curlew (A^. horceilis') shows the same number, so probably this 

 holds for the genus. Free ribs occur on the fourteenth and fifteenth, 

 and in my specimen of the Long-billed Curlew, the thirteenth vertebra 

 of this chain shows persistent sutures upon the lines of anchylosis of 

 the pleurapophyses on either side. So individuals of this species may 

 be found wherein three pairs of cervical ril)s exist, they being free 

 upon the last-named vertebra. In the atlas, the neural arch is very 

 broad from before backwards, with its jjosterior angles tipped with 



