110 Correspondence. [ja^. 



After the above had been written my attention was invited to a pecu- 

 Har conformation of the trachea in Aramus vociferus by Dr. Edgar A. 

 Mearns at the U. S. National Museum. He tells me that several years 

 ago he collected a male specimen in Florida, and that he observed in it 

 that the lower part of the trachea, above the bronchial bifurcation, formed 

 a loop or convolution, which extended posteriorly to rest on the outer 

 surfaces of the pectoralis major muscles, much as we find it in Ortalis. 

 Dr. Mearns prepared this specimen and presented it to the United States 

 National Museum, and a few days ago I made an effort to locate it 

 through the kind assistance of Dr. C. W. Richmond. We were unsuc- 

 cessfid in our search, and so the matter stands at present. 



I mention above a dissection of Macgillivray of Aramus. He had both 

 a male and a female bird at hand when he wrote out his anatomical notes 

 on this species for Audubon; but he evidently did not observe this peculi- 

 arity of the windpipe in the male bird. He figurejl the trachea of the fe- 

 male, in which sex the aforesaid convolution does not take place, and he 

 doubtless used the male specimen for other purposes. 



Dr. Mearns also collected a female Limpkin, and the skeleton is in 

 the National Museum collections. I have examined it there, and I find 

 that no such looping of the windpipe is present in it. Possibly this struc- 

 ture may have been described somewhere or other and I have never run 

 across it; in the event it has not been described, however. Dr. Mearns is 

 fully entitled to the credit of having first discovered it. 



If this letter chances to be read by any one interested in the anatomy of 

 birds in Florida, I would be very glad to communicate with him and ar- 

 range to have a male specimen of an adult Limpkin sent me, in that I may 

 figure and fully describe this condition. 



In closing I would invite attention to the excellent paper by Dr. F. E. 

 Beddard on the osteology of Aramus scolopacus {Ibis, (8) II., 1902, pp. 33- 

 54, numerous figures), which is a valuable contribution to this subject. 



As this communication goes to you, another article of mine appears in 

 'The Anatomical Record,' entitled the "Comparative Osteology of Cer- 

 tain Rails and Cranes, and the Systematic Positions of the Supersuborders 

 Gruiformes and Ralliformes." (Vol. 9, No. 10, Oct. 20, 1915, pp. 731- 

 750, figs. 1-9). A very unusual and remarkable slip has taken place in 

 this article; for, at the time I was engaged upon its preparation, and had 

 completed it for the press, two manuscripts were before me, namely, the 

 old one, published years ago when I considered that the Aramidce was a 

 family belonging among the Cranes and their allies (Gruiformes), and the 

 remodeled one, in which my present views were set forth. In assembling 

 the pages, the old page, upon which the Classification and some of the 

 remarks under "Conclusions" appeared, was accidentally substituted for 

 the new one carrying the new classificatory scheme upon it. In this shape 

 it was handed over to be typewritten. When galley proof came to hand, 

 I was extremely busy with other work, and it was therefore turned over to 

 an expert proofreader and most carefully corrected. This proofreader 



