496 SHUFELDT. [Vol. XVII. 



find in Ectopistes and Zenaidiira. Upon the superior aspect, 

 though, it reminds us more of what we see in the little Ground 

 pigeons named above, especially in the frontal region; while 

 the cranial base is more horizontally disposed than it is in 

 Ectopistes, the entire foramen magnum and more being in this 

 plane. 



Another character is seen upon lateral aspect of the skull 

 where the apices of the sphenotic and squamosal processes 

 tend to fuse together. This reminds us of the state of affairs 

 in many of the Tetraonidce. It is a galline character. Among 

 the ColumbidcB the sclerotals of the eyes are of median size in 

 so far as their width is concerned, but, owing to their being 

 longer than usual, they are comparatively fewer in number. 

 They overlap each other to some degree. I count but eleven 

 of them in an eye of the Blue-headed quail-dove. 



Of the vertebral colicnin in the pigeons, and the remainder of 

 the trunk skeleton: Ectopistes has eighteen vertebrae between 

 skull and pelvic sacrum ; there are fourteen more fused together 

 in the sacrum ; six free ones in the skeleton of the tail, and to 

 all these must be added the rather large, flat, and subtriangular 

 pygostyle. In the cervical region the " odontoid process " of the 

 second vertebra is prominent, and the cup of the atlas nearly 

 entirely absorbed. Barring the first and the last two cervical 

 vertebrae, the vertebrarterial canal is complete throughout this 

 division of the spinal column ; it is not so, however, in the 

 case of the carotid canal, where in no instance does it ever get 

 to be more than a groove. In the tenth cervical it is most 

 nearly closed. From the third to the tenth inclusive the 

 parial parapophyses are long and spiculiform ; and from about 

 the fourth to the ninth inclusive the vertebrae themselves 

 are lengthy, especially the fifth, sixth, and seventh. Their 

 postzygapophyses are lengthened, and this leaves large open- 

 ings among them leading into the spinal canal, on the dorsal 

 aspect, in the articulated column. Two pairs of ribs are 

 to be found in the cervical division of the column, — a tiny 

 free pair having both capitula and tubercula on the thirteenth 

 vertebra, and a larger free pair on the fourteenth ; these last 

 possess epipleural appendages. The three leading dorsal 



