496 SHUFELDT. [Vou. III. 
The “accessory metatarsal”’ is comparatively large as com- 
pared with the associated parts and supports a strong basal 
joint for the hallux digit. This is also the case in Salpinctes, 
another species which spends much of its time on the ground. 
The arrangement of the joints of the toes, 2, 3, 4, and 5, for 
hallux to fourth toe respectively, is strictly passerine and -pre- 
sents nothing worthy of especial remark. 
Aside from what I have pointed out then in the last few para- 
graphs touching upon the pelvic limb, the ornithotomist may be 
well assured that no vantage is to be gained, so far as the eluci- 
dation of affinities go, by entering upon a detailed comparison 
of the several characteristics presented in these bones of the 
supposed affines of Chamca, for such characters are not of a 
nature of sufficient import to be brought into the discussion 
with any telling results, and the attempt to utilize such other 
insignificant differences as I have intentionally passed over, 
would simply be a profitless task. 
In passing, I would say here that I have carefully compared 
in the present connection the skeleton in Lophophanes with a 
skeleton of Pertsoreus c. capitalis, and find the latter to be 
essentially a garruline bird in so far as its osteology goes, and 
very easily distinguished from any Tit in our avifauna. It was 
Coues who said of our Parzde that, “really they are hard to 
distinguish, technically, from Jays; but all our Jays are much 
over seven inches long.”! The resemblance, aside from the 
question of size, and to a lesser extent, of color, in the case of 
Perisoreus and Lophophanes, is brought to mind by the agreement 
in the case of the corresponding morphological details exempli- 
fied by the majority of the external characters. It is imme- 
diately dispelled by a comparison of the skeleton in the two 
genera in question ; though there may, however, be some remote 
affinity here. 
In that Chamea lays plain greenish blue eggs, of course means 
something ; especially as all our Wrens and Tits, as a rule, lay 
white eggs that are more or less spotted. Such a single charac- 
ter, however, often persists in a species, being carried down 
from the original ancestral stock, and to it no unjust weight 
must be attached. Then, too, it must be remembered that 
Chamea being related to the Wrens, and these latter surely 
1 Key to North American Birds, 2d ed., p. 263. 
