STRUCTUEE OF BIRDS. 519 



form wings, serviceable in nearly all cases for flight. There 

 are never more than three digits in the hand, two of them 

 usually much reduced, and none of them bearing claws 

 (with rare exceptions); nor more than two separate carpal 

 bones in adult recent birds ; nor any separate interclavicle ; 

 the clavicles are normally complete, and coalesce to form a 

 " merry - thought. " The sternum is large, and usually 

 keeled (the only exception among recent forms being the 

 struthious birds); it ossifies from two to five or more centres, 

 and the ribs are attached to its sides. The skull articulates 

 with the spinal column by a single median convex condyle, 

 developed in connection with a large ossified basi-occipital. 

 The lower jaw consists of several pieces, articulated by a 

 quadrate bone to the skull, and in all recent. birds both jaws 

 are toothless and encased in a horny beak. The bodies of 

 at least some of the vertebrae of recent birds have sub-cyclin- 

 drical, articular faces ; when these faces are spheroidal, they 

 are opisthocoelian, but some fossil forms are amphiccelian. 

 The proper sacral vertebrae have no expanded ribs abutting 

 against the ilia. The ilia are greatly prolonged forwards ; 

 the acetabulum is a ring, not a cup ; the ischia and pubes 

 are prolonged backwards ; there is no ischial symphysis ; 

 there may be a prepubis ; a process of the astragalus early 

 anchyloses with the tibia. The incomplete fibula does not 

 reach the ankle-joint ; there are not more than four digits, 

 the normal numbers of phalanges of which are 2, 3, 4, 5. 

 The 1st metatarsal is incomplete above ; the 3d, 3d and 4th 

 anchylose together, and with the distal tarsal bone unite to 

 form a tarso-metatarsus.* The heart is completely four-cham- 

 bered ; there is but one aortic arch (the right), and but one 

 pulmonic -trunk from the right ventricle ; the blood is red 

 arid hot. The large lungs are not free in the cavity of the 

 thorax, but fixed and moulded to the walls of that cavity ; 

 and in all recent birds the larger air-passages of the lungs ter- 

 minate in air-sacs. All except the quadrato-jugal and scapular 

 bones are hollow, and permeable to air from the lungs. There 

 is at most a rudimentary diaphragm. The eggs are very large, 

 in consequence of a copious supply of albuminous substance, 

 in the form of yolk and white, and are enclosed in a hard 

 * The structure is diagnostic of birds. . 



