362 Dr. R. W. Slmfeldt on cases of 



always imperfect^ ending in a mere style below. Generally 

 it is decidedly shorter than the tibia, but it has the same 

 length as that bone in some Penguins ^^ {op. cit. p. 252). 



Sixteen years afterwards Fleming, in his translation of ' The 

 Comparative Anatomy of the Domesticated Animals' of 

 Chaveau, gives a general account of the skeleton in birds, 

 wherein he observes : — " The fibula articulates by its head with 

 the external condyle of the femur, and is consolidated with 

 the tibia ; it never descends to the inferior extremity of that 

 bone" (1884: p. 118). Here an additional error is entered, 

 for the fibula in birds, as a general rule, does not " con- 

 solidate with the tibia." Just at this moment I fail to 

 recall a case where it does so in that Class ; at least, at its 

 articulation. 



Between these two last-given years, or in 1877, we find 

 Professor Mivart, in his ' Lessons in Elementary Anatomy,' 

 apparently entertaining the same preconceived opinion, and 

 on page 202 of that work he says : — " In its reduced state the 

 fibula may be quite styliform, as in Birds ; or it may be 

 developed inferiorly, but atrophied at its upper end, as in 

 Bats." 



Dr. Cones, in his ' Key to North-American Birds ' (1844), 

 wrote: — "The fibula is smaller [than the tibia], and (with 

 rare exceptions, as in some of the Penguins, only runs part 

 way down the outside of the tibia as a slender pointed spike, 

 close pressed against, or even partly fused with, the shaft 

 of the tibia" {op. cit. p. 119). 



In 1883^ my friend Dr. J. L. Wortman, wdio in that 

 year was engaged upon the osteology of Pandion, having 

 had all the drawings made for his memoir on the subject, 

 called my attention to the complete fibula in that very in- 

 teresting genus. This was also done independently by 

 Mr. Robert Ridgway, of the U. S. National Museum, who had 

 probably become aware of the fact several years before while 

 engaged upon his well-known work upon the Accipitres. 



Two years after this Dr. G. Baur stated that " the only 

 known bird with a complete fibula is the Jurassic Archae- 

 opteryx {Marsh, Dames). The fibula of all birds is complete 



