602 R. W. SHUFELDT 



Curiously enough, I find the entire sternum, all to a small an- 

 terior portion of the extremely rudimentary keel, still performed 

 in cartilage. This is thick and substantial; and, as the mor- 

 phology of this bone, as it appears in the adult bird, has long 

 been known, it requires no further description here. Its form on 

 lateral view, in the subadult individual, is well shown in figure 1, 



The skeleton of the limbs. All the long bones, including the 

 phalanges of pes and manus, are, in the pullet, ossified, so far as 

 their shafts are concerned, the proximal and distal extremities 

 being more or less still in cartilage. These bones are shnilarly 

 ossified in the chick; but the process has not proceeded to the 

 same extent nor is the bony tissue so dense. In fact, it is what we 

 may expect to find in an earlier stage of the process (figs. 1 

 and 2). 



In the humerus, the radial crest is scarcely at all developed, 

 and the bone as a whole exhibits, to quite a marked degree, the 

 sigmoid curve from head to distal extremity, where the trochleae 

 are still in cartilage. 



The antibrachium is somewhat shorter than the arm, and of 

 the two bones only the ulna exhibits any degree of curvature — 

 even in its case it is not so very great. 



Ulnare and radiale of the carpus are only in cartilage, while the 

 three long bones composing the metacarpus are as yet separate — 

 the one for the pollex digit being short and rather thick and at- 

 tached parallel to the stout and very straight shaft of the index 

 metacarpal. The medium metacarpal is slender, nearly of uni- 

 form caliber, and very much bowed, the concavity bemg toward 

 the index metacarpal. 



There is nothing peculiar about the terminal digits and claws, 

 of which latter there are two, as sho^\^l in figure 1 of the present 

 article. The medius digit or phalangeal joint is small and tri- 

 angular in outline, being without a terminal claw. 



In the pelvic limb (fig. 1), ossification of the several bones 

 composing it has proceeded about as far as in the bones of the 

 wing. The femur is but shghtly bowed anteroposteriorly and 

 promises to be stout and strong, as indeed all the bones of this 

 limb are. Even in the pullet I fail to find any bony patella, 



