Shufeldt fl// ///^ Ostcolog-y of CincJiis mcxican.iis. 213 



NOTES UPON THE OSTEOLOGY OF CINCLUS 

 MB XI CAN US. 



BV H. W. SHUFELOT. 



It has never been my good fortune to enjoy the op^Dortunity of 

 studying the habits and manners of our American Dipper in its 

 native ha'unts, but this seems to have been due more to my ill- 

 kick, than to any neglect on my part to seize upon every chance 

 to visit the localities where this bird, one that I have so often 

 longed to see alive, certainh' should have occurred : I refer to the 

 rocky, mountain streams that course down the gorges of the Big 

 Horn Alountains and the Laramie Hills. ]\Iany a time I have 

 scrambled alone up through the rocky canon that marked the bed 

 of one of these noisy, bounding torrents with the vain hope of 

 finding Cinclus., but, like many a naturalist before me, I was 

 obliged to leave the countrv where these birds undoubtedly occur 

 without ever having seen one of them. So that of my own per- 

 sonal experience I have nothing to add, so far as its life history is 

 concerned, to the many beautiful descriptions of this bird given 

 in our standard ornithologies, familiar to all lovers of the science, 

 and to those read in its literature. 



Of skins of Clnchis I have examined many a score, as has 

 every one who from time to time has gone through large collec- 

 tions, but the ver}' nearest, the most intimate acquaintance that I 

 can boast of ever having made with this little bird, was with a 

 pair and three young that had been stowed away by themselves 

 in alcohol for several years in the large collection at the Smith- 

 sonian Institution. Of this material I was kindly allowed to avail 

 myself, or of so much of it at least as was necessary to develop 

 the facts that I now have the pleasure of presenting to my reader 

 in this paper. 



I did very little with the viscera, and this part of its anatomy 

 has been laid aside for some future study, my attention having 

 been directed more particularly to the skeleton, and to the ex- 

 tremely interesting points that it presented for consideration. 

 These I shall endeavor to describe, as minutely and elaborately 

 as the limits of this article will permit, at the same time sup- 



