iSSS.] Corrcfpoudciicc. -^9 I 



sandpipers {Truiffd), curlews {Niiiiic>iii(s), pratincoles {Glareola), have 

 the four-notched sternum. In the gotiuits {Limosa, Helias) the medial 

 notches are almost obsolete, and the lateral ones wide. The 'thick-knees' 

 (^CEdiciiemus) and bustards (^Oit's) ha\-e the four-notched sterninn, the 

 notches being small." 



A number of j'ears ago I published in the 'Journal of Anatomy' in Lon- 

 don, with plates, a memoir having much to do with the osteology of our 

 American Limicolte, wherein I was enabled to confirm Professor Owen's 

 observations, and extend them by noting the ' four-notched sternum ' in 

 our own species of Limosa, in two species of Oyster-catcher, in Totanus 

 fiavipes, in several species of true Sandpipers, and in the genus Bartra- 

 mia, where I found "a small pair of inner notches in the sternum, with 

 very deep outer ones." I further went on to remark, as I have already 

 stated above, that I had only found the 'two-notched' sternum in the 

 Snipe {Gallhiago delicata) of the American Limicolae that I examined on 

 that occasion. Since then, as I say, I have found a similar form of the 

 bone in our own Woodcock {P/iilo/iela minor). Among taxonomists, the 

 notching of the sternum has always carried with it more or less weight in 

 deciding avian affinities, and I was promptly held up for my sins, for hav- 

 ing published somewhere about a year ago, that I did not attach much 

 weight to this character, as applied to the sterna of certain Auks, where 

 the bone in the same species could be found to have a pair of notches, or a 

 notch only on one side, or an absolutely notchless sternum. As we 

 come among the higher groups of birds, however, this character becomes, 

 as it were, more fixed, and the bone for any number of individuals of the 

 same species, very much alike, and certainlj' the "notching" the same. 

 So constant is the character that, for instance, I doubt very much that 

 any one yet has discovered a sternum from a specimen of G. delicata with 

 more than a pair of notches in it, while on the other hand no one can with 

 certainty predict what the pattern of the xiphoidal margin of the sternum 

 will be in a specimen of Uria lomvia before cutting down upon it for 

 examination. Professor Owen figured the sternum of the now-supposed 

 extinct Great Auk (P. impennis) with the posterior border entire to the 

 bone in question. Whereas in specimens recently obtained by Mr. F. A. 

 Lucas, the sterna show a pair of notches in many instances. 



Osteologically, the gap between such genera as Gallinago and Philo- 

 helu, and the genus Tringa, for instance, is a wide one, for not only is 

 the sternum "two-notched" in the first mentioned genera, and "four- 

 notched" in Triiiga, but the remaining bones of the skeletons of the com- 

 pared forms are also totally different, and thus bear out the dissimilarity 

 of structure suggested by the sterna. Presumably, too, were the 'soft 

 parts' also carefully compared, they likewise would support these differ- 

 ences. Having arrived, however, at the genus Trittga, and passing up 

 through the order Limicohe, as we group our birds in the A. O. U. Check 

 List, we find the "four-notched" sternum a very constant character 

 through it, and through the succeeding genera of Ereiaietes, Calidris, 

 Limosa, and, as I saj', in such forms of Totanus as T. melunoleuctis and 



