Vol.XIII. 

 1913 



1 Shufeldt, Osteology of the Red Wattle-Bird. n 



made clearer than ever that this bird at least belongs among the 

 Nectanniidcs, the entire structure of its skull and tongue pointing 

 unmistakably to this conclusion. The only question that can 

 be raised is that the skeleton at hand was accidentally mis- 

 identified by the one who labelled it at the Zoological Society of 

 London prior to transmitting it to me, and the skeleton is of some 

 small Nectarine species instead of a Meliphagidine one. Such 

 slips have happened to the best of naturalists. 



Remainder of the Axial Skeleton. 



A consideration of this part of the osteology of Anthochcera 

 carnncv.lata need not detain us long, and, indeed, this may like- 

 wise be said of the skeletology of the limbs of our subject. The 

 reason for this lies in the fact that in my above- cited paper on 

 the osteology of Arachnothera magna quite a complete account is 

 presented of the osteology of these parts of the skeleton in such 

 Meliphagidine species as Entomyza cyanotis and Prosthemadera 

 novcB-zealandicB, and the characters there presented on the part 

 of any of the bones to be compared agree, in the main, with the 

 corresponding ones as we find them in Anthochcera carunciilata. 



This last-named species agrees with Prosthemadera and 

 Entomyza in possessing 19 vertebrae between the skull and the 

 pelvis, and of these vertebrae 14 are cervicals and 5 are true 

 dorsals. An extremely minute pair of very rudimentary free 

 ribs are attached to the 13th cervical vertebra, while the pair 

 articulating with the 14th are well developed, and possess small 

 epipleural appendages. These are shown as the leading pair in 

 fig. 4 of Plate L of the present paper. From that illustration it 

 will be observed that the last pair of ribs are pelvic ribs ; they lack 

 unciform processes, and their ha^mapophyses do not reach the 

 sternum. 



All this part of the skeleton in the Red Wattle-Bird is essentially 

 Passerine, and agrees, in the main, with any ordinary Passerine 

 bird, quite irrespective of its habitat. 



While Anthochcera agrees with Entomyza and Prosthemadera in 

 having six free vertebras and a pygostyle in the skeleton of its tail, 

 these are far better developed than they are in Entomyza cyanotis, 

 and still better than they are in Prosthemadera novce-hollandice, 

 in which last-named species they are very considerably reduced 

 in size as compared with those in the tail of the Red Wattle-Bird, 

 and yet the two birds are about of a size. 



The pelves of the three species here being compared likewise 

 closely agree in all of their essential characters, and this composite 

 bone is quite typically Passerine in its structure and morphology 

 in these particular species of the MeliphagidcB. It may be noted, 

 however, that the pelvis of Anthochcera carunciilata is actually as 

 well as relatively larger than it is in P. novce-zealandice and E. 

 cyanotis, and, in adult individuals, may at once be distinguished 

 by the double row of five — or five pairs — of intervertebral 

 foramina existing in the post-acetabular region between the 



