93 Mr. H. Seebohm on the 



and A. badius in my collection I refer without hesitation 

 to the latter species. 



iEaiALITIS GEOFFROYI (Wagl.). 



One male (Kachka-kala, 15th April), just assuming the 

 breeding-plumage. 



jiEoiALITlS ASIATICA (Pall.). 



One male (Lenkoran, 4th April), in full breeding-plumage. 



f VIII. — An Attempt to Diagnose the Suborders of the Ancient 

 Ardeino-Anserine Assemblage of Birds by the aid of Osteo- 

 logical Characters alone. By Henry Seebohm. 



In my last paper (Ibis, 1888, pp. 415-i35) I endeavoured to 

 diagnose the suborders of the great Gallino-Gralline group 

 of birds by the aid of their osteological characters alone. I 

 propose in the present essay to attempt to point out the dis- 

 tinguishing osteological features of the suborders of the 

 ancient Ardeino-Anserine assemblage of birds. It is sup- 

 posed that these two orders (as we may provisionally call 

 them) are separated from each other by a great gulf, the 

 Gallino-Gralline birds being regarded as schizognathous, and 

 the Ardeino-Anserine birds as desmognathous. This dis- 

 tinction is not, however, a very satisfactory one. In the 

 Gallinse, for example, some of the Cracidee, when old, become 

 more or less desmognathous by the union of the maxillo- 

 palatines with an ossified nasal septum, a form of desmo- 

 gnathism scarcely distinguishable from that of some of the 

 Vultures and Owls. The narrowness of the line which sepa- 

 rates the two orders is further shown by the remarkable 

 similarity of the basipterygoid processes of the Anseres and 

 the Gallinse. Scarcely less remarkable is the prolongation 

 and recurvation of the mandible behind its articulation with 

 the quadrate, which is very similar in the two groups, 

 though not exclusively confined to them. So close, indeed, 

 are the Anseres to the Gallinse that it has even been a dis- 

 puted point (Garrod, P. Z. S. 1876, p. 189) to which of them 

 the Palamedeidie should be referred. It must also be con- 



