No. 3-] THE OSTEOLOGY OF THE PIGEONS. 505 



Upon the limbs of the skeleton of other pigeons found in 

 our United States avifauna with what has just been described 

 for Ectopistes, we find the differences to be but slight and 

 hardly worthy of special record. The same general columbine 

 characters run through them all. Perhaps it is Starncenas 

 that departs the most from this general set of characters of the 

 extremities, and in it the tendency is towards the gallinaceous 

 types, — rather tetraonine than otherwise. Its wing, in so far 



Fig. 4. — Line-sketch of the left lateral aspect of body-skeleton of the Blue-headed quail-dove 

 {Star7t(Enas cyanocepluild), natural size, by the author from specimen No. 33834 of the Col- 

 lections of the United States National Museum, and designed to show the unusually large 

 sternum in representatives of this subfamily of pigeons, — the Starncenitice. 



as its skeletal structure is concerned, again reminds me of the 

 wing of Geococcyx, with a tincture of the fowl in it. 



In th.Q pelvic Ihnh of Starncenas cyanocephala the trochanter 

 of the femur is unusually conspicuous and lofty ; the patella 

 consists of one large, well-formed sesamoid, and usually a sepa- 

 rate tiny ossific granule to its inner side ; the pro- and ecto- 

 cnemial processes or crests of tibio-tarsus are considerably 

 more prominent than in any of the other pigeons ; while, 

 finally, two or more ossified pieces may be found in the "tibial 

 cartilage " behind the distal end of the tibia. Otherwise the 

 skeleton of the leg of this species is completely columbine in 

 character. 



