316 SHUFELDT. [VoL. II. 
plana, on its anterior aspect at a point below, and to the inner 
side of its externo-superior angle. I am thus particular in de- 
scribing in detail the point of attachment of this extremity of 
the descending process of the lacrymal, for the reason that in 
some Sandpipers it is found to be attached to the very angle 
above referred to, while just before arriving there it sends for- 
wards another small, pointed spine, the extremity of which 
latter is free, and directed somewhat inwards towards the 
rhinal chamber. No little variety, however, is to be met with 
in this particular among the 77zzge@, and in such a form as the 
solitary Sandpiper (2. solitarius) the free end of the lacrymal is 
attached at a point corresponding to the site of its attachment 
in Afhriza. With the true Plovers the case is still different, for 
in them the gars plana is quite small and with rounded angles, 
while the lacrymal has a long, slender, descending process ter- 
minating in a free point below, and likewise has the anterior- 
projecting spine coming off from a mid-point of its continuity.? 
Arenaria has a large square pars plana, and in this form the 
lacrymal soon fuses at its lower end with the supero-external 
angle of the osseous lamina in question; while in Hematopus 
the pars plana is again found to be small, and the lacrymals 
very large, with their descending processes thick and strong, 
being fully anchylosed with the outer border of the pars plana, 
and projecting a short distance below that plate, though not arriv- 
ing at the maxillary bar. 
From all this I should say, then, that in Aphviza, Arenaria, 
and most true Sandpipers the gars plana and the lacrymal bones 
were more or less alike, having much the same relation to each 
other; but in Plovers and Oyster-catchers these structures are 
essentially very different; not only do they differ with each 
other, but with the aforesaid mentioned types, and in a manner 
set forth in the last paragraph. 
Limicoline birds are notorious for the large vacuities that occur 
in their interorbital septa, rendering that osseous partition in the 
vast majority, if in not all the species, a very deficient bulwark 
between the-orbits. Mematopus has it most entire, while in 
Aphriza, the Turnstones, Sandpipers, and Plovers, it commonly 
1 For an excellent figure of this arrangement of the lacrymal, see Huxley’s figure 
of the enlarged skull of C. p/uvialis in his paper, “On the Classification of Birds.” 
P.Z.S., 1867, p. 427, Fig. 7, L. 
