336 Mr. P. R. Lowe an the Crab-Plover, 



A comparison of the skull of this young Crab-Plover with 

 the skull of a newly-hatched Tern seems to suggest no close 

 affinity, in the sense that the Crab-Plover would be called a 

 Tern. In the quite young nestling Tern examined (two or 

 three days old) the arrangement and development of the 

 maxillo-palatines, maxillaries, and palatines was almost an 

 exact reproduction of what obtains in the adult Tern, the 

 inaxillo-palatine processes being especially well developed, 

 conspicuously advanced in ossification, and entirely free 

 from any fusion with the palatal bars. In this Tern chick 

 the relics of basipterygoid articulations were distinctly 

 evident. No supraoccipital fenestra were indicated. The 

 antorbital plates were cartilaginous. The interorbital region 

 (pre-frontal and frontal) had a distinctly more generalised 

 (true limicoline) facies than obtains in the adult Tern, 

 and, indeed, the general configuration and the absence of 

 specialization in regard to the whole of the upper portion 

 of the skull and premaxilla was very reminiscent of the 

 Turnstone. 



It seems hardly necessary to add that until a series of 

 actual embryos of the Crab-Plover and Tern are available 

 for the purpose of comparison, we are not likely to get much 

 further towards probing the secrets of tiieir phylogeny ; but 

 we have tried to make the best of the material at our 

 disposal 



Summary. 

 The above review of some of the principal features in the 

 osteology of Dromas seems to fully justify the opinion that 

 this peculiar type of Wader deserves a special niche of its 

 own in the classification of the Chadriiformes, and that its 

 affinities with the Gulls, Terns, Stone-Plovers, or other 

 aberrant groups are no closer than is implied in the con- 

 ception that all such groups have a common ordinal or 

 subordinal fellowship. Using the term " Plover^' to embrace 

 any Wader comprised in the true Limicolse (Charadriidse — 

 Scolopacidae), Dromas is undoubtedly a specialised Plover, 

 just as a Gull is a specialised Plover ; but any Gull-like^ 



