General Note 



435 



sound of their voices. They guided him regularly to a spring near bv 

 where I saw him bathe daily, always, however, with some of his compan- 

 ions close by. They not only watched and guided him but they fed him. 

 I had noticed some days previously some Jays carrying food, and thought 

 it strange at that season, as there were no young then to feed, but found 

 afterwards, to my surprise and pleasure, that the poor old blind bird was 

 being fed by those whom he could no longer see. 



About a week after first noticing this bird I was compelled on account 

 of sickness in the family to relinquish my observations. There is no 

 doubt whatever that the bird was an old one. The young of the year are 

 easily recognized, not alone by their plumage but by their peculiar teas- 

 ing, whining notes, unmistakable to anyone familiar with the species. — 

 Frithof Kumlien, Mihvaukee, Wis. 



[My attention has just been called by my friend Prof. G. W. Peckham 

 to some notes in Darwin's 'Descent of Man,' 1S75, pp. 102, 103. The ex- 

 istence of these observations was entirely unknown to my brother (the 

 writer of the above, now recently deceased) or to me at the time his notes 

 were made. I quote from Darwin, p. 102: "Capt. Stansbury found on a 

 salt lake in Utah an old and completely blind pelican, which was verv 

 fat, and must have been well fed for a long time by his companions."* 

 Also foot-note on same page: "Capt. Stansbury also gives an interest- 

 ing account of the manner in which a very young pelican, carried awav 

 by a strong stream, was guided and encouraged in its attempts to reach 

 the shore by half a dozen birds." Darwin adds: "Mr. Blyth, as he in- 

 forms me, saw Indian crows feeding two or three of their companions 

 which were blind." — Ludvvig Kumlien, Mthvankee. Wis.'\ 



Notes on the Nomenclature of the Muscles of Volation in Birds' 

 Wings.— Mr. Allen's interesting paperf calls up some points regarding 

 the names of the iS muscles of the antebrachium and manus of the bird. 

 It may be safely assumed that these represent the usual or normal mus- 

 culation of the parts, though I should be far from presuming that no 

 additional ones, or no difterent specializations of these, occur in the class 

 Aves. They have been named from time to time, by difterent persons, 

 upon no system whatever, like most other anatomical structures. It mav 

 not be easy to refer the highly specialized musculation of the wing in de- 

 tail to any system based upon the state of the parts in Homo sapiens. 

 but I am able to indicate some of the homologies concerned with the 

 muscles of the human forearm and hand. These I will note, according 

 to the system of neuromyology of Coues and Shute.J I take them up in 

 the order in which they are presented by Mr. Allen. 



I. 'Flexor carpi ulnaris.' A muscle which has "its origin at the internal 

 condyle of the humerus, and its insertion on the ulna at the wrist" is 



* See H. Stansbury, ' Exploration and Survey of the Valley of the Great Salt Lake of 

 Utah. &c.' Phila., 1852, p. 193.— Ed. 

 t See this number of The Auk. p. 418. 

 X N. Y. Medical Record, XXXII, 1887, pp93-98, 122-126. 



