332 ON THE TTERYLOSIS OF MESITES. 



The number of remiges cannot be counted with certainty ; but there 

 are certainly 10 primaries ; the wing is much rounded. 



There are 16 rectrices, a very non-passerine character * ; and both the 

 upper and under tail-coverts are very long, with the last feathers rectri- 

 ciform and extending along the tail for quite three fourths of its length 

 both above and below. 



There is apparently no claw on the pollex ; and the contour-feathers 

 have no aftershaft in both these respects differing from the Ballidse. 

 The tail in my specimen has unfortunately been so cut that I have been 

 unable to ascertain for certain whether the oil-gland is present or not. 

 I can find no tuft, however ; and as we know that the gland, though 

 present, is nude both in Rhinochetus and Eurypyya, such is probably its 

 condition in Mesites too f. 



The continuous head-feathering extends about halfway down the neck, 

 and then gives off the dorsal and ventral tracts of each side, which are 

 separated by well-marked spaces, of which the dorsal one is considerably 

 the biggest. The feathering of the lower part of the neck is thus quadri- 

 serial, separated by as many apteria. In the lower part of the neck the 

 two dorsal tracts, which are narrow but strongly feathered, are widely sepa- 

 rated, and somewhat divergent, including between them the anterior pair 

 of dorsal powder-down patches, but converge again in the interscapular 

 region. Here they suddenly become much feebler, and are then continued 

 on as the much more weakly-feathered posterior part of the dorsal tract, 

 P. Z. S. 1882, this being of a furcate form, with the united part about 1 inch long, and 

 p. 269. inclosing a fairly broad median space. The limbs of this posterior fork 

 are strongly dilated in the middle part of their extent, being there 6 to 

 7 feathers broad, and united externally by scattered feathers with the 

 very broad and long lumbar tracts, which are arranged in about six rows 

 of not closely-placed feathers, the posterior row of these being consider- 

 ably the stronger. 



The humeral tracts are not very broad or strong, and are quite distinct, 

 anteriorly, from the inferior tract. 



This last, which (as already described) commences on each side about 

 halfway down the neck, springing at once independently from the con- 

 tinuous feathering of the anterior cervical region, ceases altogether at 

 the commencement of the pectoral region (extending as far as the most 



of which are ossified near the bottom of the leg. In all ordinary Passeres, it will be 

 remembered, this vinculum is quite absent. 



* According to Nitzsch, however, this is the number met with in the male of Menura 

 superba. 



t In answer to an inquiry on this subject, M. A. Milne-Edwards has been kind 

 enough to inform me that his spirit-specimen of Mesites is also unfortunately damaged 

 at the root of the tail, but that on an examination of a skin he finds apparently an 

 oil-gland present with no tuft. 



