742 PRION 
which seem to have no true remiges, the posterior edge of their 
flipper-like wings being formed of a greatly increased number of 
little stiff feathers. 
The number of Primaries indicates a gradual reduction beginning 
at the distal end. Omitting the few birds with 7 metacarpal quills, 
we find that the 11th or terminal quill is never fully developed and 
often scarcely functional. It is always much shortened and con- 
cealed between its upper and lower covert, being not unfrequently 
shorter and weaker than its covert, which in that case is sometimes 
stiff. In some Rails and in many Passeres the 11th quill is 
very small indeed, or may be wholly absent. In this case, how- 
ever, the upper covert is present as an apparently supernumerary 
feather, provided that the 10th quill is not much reduced. This 
last shews every intermediate stage between the largest develop- 
ment possible as in Larus and Cypselus, and a degenerate condition 
as in many of the so-called ‘ Oscines novempennatex,” + where the 10th’ 
primary is supposed to be absent or at least extremely small and 
concealed. In reality it is always present, even in the Dicaidz, 
while in some Hirundinidx it is more than half an inch, and in 
Icteridex may be more than an inch long. In fact there are few 
birds in which this “absent” quill does not measure the third of 
an inch in length (see REMIGES). 
PRION, a genus of PETRELS established by Lacépéde (Mém. de 
PInst. i. p. 514), on account of the denticulated or serrated edges 
<> 
Prion virratus. (After Buller.) 
of their mandibles, and used as an English word by many writers. 
To it are referred the Procelluria vittata of Gmelin and several other 
1 Equivalent to the ‘‘Tanagroid Passeres” of Mr. Wallace (bis, 1874, p. 
410), or the ‘‘ Passeres Fringilliformes”’ of the Catalogue of the Birds in the 
British Musewm, vols. X.-Xil. 
