Page 415. 
416 | ON THINOCURUS AND ATTAGIS. 
division of the Gralle. This is much the same position as that in 
which they are located by Messrs. Sclater and Salvin in their 
* Nomenclator Avium Neotropicalium.” Nitzsch, as Burmeister tells 
us, was disposed to place them in his group of the Alectorides, along 
with Chauna, Otis, Cariama, Psophia, and Grus; whilst Wagler 
placed them with the Pteroclide; but Burmeister himself is of 
opinion that “this remarkable bird (Thinocorus rumicivorus), which 
Wagler very improperly compares with the Sand-Grouse (Pterocles), 
is in every particular an aberrant Scolopacine form, related to 
Glareola in exactly the same way as Chionis to Haematopus, or Dromas 
to Recurvirostra.”’* 
As far as pterylography goes, not much of, importance with refer- 
ence to the position of the Thinocorine can be learnt. In that they 
possess a tufted oil-gland they differ from the Pteroclide and Columbe, 
in both of which families it is nude. On the whole the pterylosis is 
typically Limicoline. 
With reference to the alimentary canal, the tongue is simple and 
triangular, occupying most of the space between the rami of the man- 
dible. The cesophagus is not large, but develops a capacious and well- 
defined globose crop, situated just above the furcula. The gizzard is 
muscular, not large, and it possesses simple triturating pads like those 
in the majority of non-carnivorous birds. 
In the specimens of both Thinocorus and Attagis under considera- 
tion the intestines are 12°5 inches in length; but it must be re- 
membered that the Attagis is a nestling. The colic ceca in the Thino- 
corus are 2°25 and 2°5 inches long; in the Attagis they are both 3 
inches. 
Myologically, the ambiens muscle is present, although slender. 
Both the femoro-caudal and its accessory head exist, of equal breadth, 
The semitendinosus, together with the accessory semitendinosus are of 
average size, whilst the semimembranosus is peculiarly slender. The 
myological formula, therefore, in conformity with the nomenclature 
adopted in my paper “ On the Muscular System of Birds,” in the 
Society’s ‘ Proceedings” for 1874 (p. 111),t is AB, X Y. 
The vastus externus covers the biceps cruris; and in the foot the 
deep plantar tendons are arranged as in Apteryx and many other 
birds in which the hallux is small, the flexor longus hallucis blending 
with the flexor digitorum profundus, at the same time that a slender 
slip is sent off from the inner side of the conjoined tendon to the 
haliux.t 
In the patagium of the wing a slender muscular fasciculus runs 
* Nitzsch’s ‘‘ Pterylography,” Ray Society’s translation, p. 139. 
+ (Supra, p. 208.) 
t Vide “Proceedings of the Zoological Society,” 1875, p. 341. (Supra, p. 291.) 
