No. 3-] POSITION OF CHAMEA. 489 
ear, their structure in these passerine types being well known, 
as is the fact that they seldom, if ever, offer us any important 
characters upon which to assist us in determining affinities. 
Of the Remainder of the Axial Skeleton. — There are nineteen 
free vertebra between the skull and the pelvis in the spinal col- 
umn of Chamea fasctata, and of these the first eleven are 
without ribs; the twelfth supports an exceedingly minute pair 
of rudimentary riblets; on the thirteenth these are longer; on the 
fourteenth they are fully developed, and have uncinate processes, 
but do not reach the sternum. The next five vertebra bear 
complete ribs, which connect with the sternum by hamapophy- 
ses, and the thoracic ones all have long slender uncinate 
processes ; finally, there is a pair of “ sacral ribs,” without these 
latter, and whose hzemapophyses fail to reach the costal border 
on either side of the sternum. 
Psaltriparus plumbeus agrees thus far, with respect to the 
vertebrae and ribs between skull and pelvis, with Chamea, and 
in both species the ribs in particular are very delicate structures ; 
in the Bush-Tit being fully as much so as the ribs in a skeleton 
of the Rivoli Humming-bird (Eugenes fulgens), for which I am 
indebted to Mr. W. W. Price, of Tombstone, Arizona, who 
recently collected the specimen near that place, and presented it 
to me. 
We also find, in this part of the spinal column, nineteen verte- 
brze in Accentor, but this species differs in this, that the hama- 
pophyses of the last dorsal vertebrz do not arrive at the costal 
borders of the sternum. This arrangement disagrees even with 
our North American Warblers (Compsothlypis, Dendrotca, Pro- 
tonotaria, and several others), and just at this moment I fail to 
recall to mind the sternum of any ordinary small passerine bird, 
that has, as have the two sterna of Accentor modularis before me, 
but fowr hemapophysial facets upon either costal border. I 
pointed out several years ago that in Otocorzs the first pair, or 
one of the first pair, on either side, of the hamapophyses, may 
fail to be present, and thus have a sternum with only four 
facets on either border, but in Accentor the missing facet is at 
the other end of the row. (Contributions to the Anatomy of 
Birds: Ostcology of Eremophita.) 
The ultimate hamapophyses in Accentor barely clear the cos- 
tal borders of the sternum, and it is just possible that speci- 
