56 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS 
Birds—the Ostrich and its allies (as L’Herminier, we have seen, had 
already shewn) excepted. But it was now made to appear that the 
Struthious Birds in this respect resembled not only the. Duck, but a 
great many other groups—Waders, Birds-of-Prey, Pigeons, Passerines 
and perhaps all Birds not Gallinaceous,—so that, according to Cuvier’s 
view, the five points of ossification observed in the Gallinx, instead of 
exhibiting the normal process, exhibited one quite exceptional, and that 
in all other Birds, so far as he had been enabled to investigate the 
matter, ossification of the sternum began at two points only, situated 
near the anterior upper margin of the side of the sternum, and gradu- 
ally crept towards the keel, into which it presently extended; and, 
though he allowed the appearance of detached portions of calcareous 
matter at the base of the still cartilaginous keel in Ducks at a certain 
age, he seemed to consider this an individual peculiarity. This fact 
was fastened upon by Geoffroy in his reply, which was a week later pre- 
sented to the Academy, but was not published in full until the following 
year, when it appeared in the Annales du Muséwm (ser. 3, ii. pp. 1-22). 
Geoffroy here maintained that the five centres of ossification existed in 
the Duck just as in the Fowl, and that the real difference of the 
process lay in the period at which they made their appearance, a cir- 
cumstance,. which, though virtually proved by the preparations Cuvier 
had used, had been by him overlooked or misinterpreted. The Fowl 
possesses all five ossifications at birth, and for a long while the middle 
piece forming the keel is by far the largest. They all grow slowly, and 
it is not until the animal is about six months old that they are united 
into one firm bone. The Duck on the other hand, when newly hatched, 
and for nearly a month after, has the sternum wholly cartilaginous. 
Then, it is true, two lateral points of ossification appear at the margin, 
but subsequently the remaining three are developed, and when once 
formed they grow with much greater rapidity than in the Fowl, so that 
by the time the young Duck is quite independent of its parents, and 
can shift for itself, the whole sternum is completely bony. Nor, 
argued Geoffroy, was it true to say, as Cuvier had said, that. the like 
occurred in the Pigeons and true Passerines. In their case the sternum 
begins to ossify from three very distinct points—one of which is the 
centre of ossification of the keel. As regards the Struthious Birds, they 
could not be likened to the Duck, for in them at no age was there any 
indication of a single median centre of ossification, as Geoffroy had 
satisfied himself by his own observations made in Egypt many years 
before. Cuvier seems to have acquiesced in the corrections of his views 
made by Geoffroy, and attempted no rejoinder; but the attentive and 
impartial student of the discussion will see that a good deal was really 
wanting to make the latter’s reply effective, though, as events have 
shewn, the former was hasty in the conclusions at which he arrived, 
having trusted too much to the first appearance of centres of ossification, 
for, had his observations in regard to other Birds been carried on with 
the same attention to detail as in regard to the Fowl, he would cer- 
tainly have reached some very different results. 
In 1834 Gloger brought out at Breslau the first (and unfortunately 
