376 ON THE PETKELS COLLECTED DURING 



The nasal tubes of the Petrels are formed, it may be observed, by the 

 elongation of the cartilaginous walls of the nasal capsules. The upper 

 and lower turbinal cartilages are well developed ; the alina&al turbinal 

 cartilage, on the other hand, is represented only by a slight ingrowth from 

 the internal nasal wall. Such, at least, is the condition of these parts in 

 Majaqueus, the only form I have examined as regards these structures. 



The legs are always bare of feathers for some little distance above the 

 tarsal joint, the metatarsal scutellation extending upwards over the joint 

 some little way, but disappearing where the leg is covered by the 

 feathers, and there replaced by simple skin. 



Zool. Chall. The scutellation of the tarsi presents different characters in the 

 t*Tu 13 Procellariidse and Oceaniticlao respectively. In the former, in all the 

 forms, the legs, which are often much compressed below the lower limit 

 of feathering, are covered pretty uniformly by small scutella of hexagonal 

 shape (vide PL XIII. fig. 2, a). In the Oceanitidae, on the other hand, 

 though the back and more or less of the lateral aspects of the leg are so 

 covered, the front of the leg is either, as in the genera Oceanites (PL XII. 

 fig. 1, a) and Fregetta (PI. XIII. fig. 1, a), " ocreate,*' being covered for 

 nearly all its length by a single long scute, or, as in Garrodia and 

 Pelagodroma (PL XII. figs. 2, a ; 3, a), has a series of strong, well-marked, 

 obliquely transverse scutella, extending on to the external and internal 

 faces of the leg for some distance. 



The hallux in the Tubinares is always extremely small, and in the 

 genus Pelecandides quite absent. When present it consists only of a 

 single joint (vide infra, p. 425, and PL XXII. fig. 6), which, even when best 

 developed, is very small and covered by a short, nearly straight, spur-like 

 claw, which projects externally, some little way above the level of the 

 other digits, and, being very small, may easily be passed over. In the 

 Oceanitidae this nail is extremely minute, considerably more so than in 



Fig. 2. 

 I c d 



* 



Rudimentary Hallux of the Albatrosses : of the natural size, except a. 



a. PJuxbetriafuliginosa, showing the two ossicles, connected together by fibrous tissue, the 



distal one being covered by a minute claw, which appears outside the skin 

 (represented in section). 



b. Viomedea exufans. c. Diomedva brachyura. d. Thalassiarche culminata. 



