164 SHOULDER-GIRDLE AND BREAST-BONE. 



such a thing were possible, between a Rail and a Cormorant. They have a long, arcuate, blunt- 

 pointed scapula, with a short acromion process ; a long, slender coracoid, with a high head, a 

 curled meso-coracoid process, and a hooked epicoracoid angle ; whilst the broad base is greatly 

 scooped within ; these bones overlap each other. The cartilaginous segment is not divided 

 thoroughly into a meso-scapular and a prse-coracoid ; but it may ossify separately above (see Plate 

 XIV, fig. 10, m. sc. s., which shows the furcula of Ardea purpurea), whilst below the head of the 

 coracoid the lower moiety forms a ledge on the shoulder of the furcular ramus. The clavicular 

 bones (cl., i. cl.) are very Lacertian, for they form a four-rayed tract of bone : here, however, the 

 ascending ray is principally formed by the clavicles themselves, for the inter-clavicle is small ; it 

 forms the flat head that articulates, in most species, with the flattened angle of the sternal keel. 

 This joint is not formed in Cancroma nor in Botaurus stettaris, where the ascending bar is as feeble 

 as in the Rails. In Tigrisoma leucolophum it is quite absent, and the inter-clavicle forms a small 

 bony pimple below the junction of the clavicles, as in Eurypyga and Pterocles. In Tigrisoma 

 the furcula is nearly U-shaped ; the rami are much nearer together in the other Herons ; the 

 ascending process is very large and clubbed in Ardea cinerea, and this species has the most 

 massive inter-clavicle. 



The Sternum of the Herons is oblong, the length being twice that of the breadth ; it has a 

 narrow notch between the coracoid grooves, and a long rostrum below them. The keel is large, 

 runs the whole length of the Sternum, is deeply concave in front, and very arcuate in its lower 

 outline ; in the more typical kinds the apex of the keel is flattened for the inter-clavicle. The 

 coracoid grooves largely overlap, the right passing beneath the left ; the costal processes are 

 large, somewhat triangular, and diverging ; behind them there are four costal condyles in the 

 more typical kinds, and three in Botaurus stettaris and Tigrisoma leucolophum. There is 

 one great triangular " xiphoid notch," but its inner margin is sinuous, showing a tendency to 

 the formation of the inner notch. The Bittern and the Tiger-bittern have the " rostrum" much 

 smaller than in Ardea, and the Sternum much narrower ; in the former there are two pairs of 

 notches, as in the Ibis ; both small, but the inner ones much less than the outer ; this Bird 

 has the most of the Rail in its head and face. But the Tiger-bittern, which has the skull 

 and face of a miniature Adjutant, has the Sternum extremely like that of a Gallinule, the single 

 pair of notches being very deep ; the whole Sternum very narrow ; the outer xiphoid bars very 

 long and sigmoid; and the "rostrum" scarcely more developed than in the Rails. In Erodius, 

 Nydicorax, and Cancroma the Sternum agrees with that of Ardea. 



Sub-family SCOPING. 



I place the Umbre and Balseniceps together, notwithstanding the many things in which they 

 disagree ; for, in comparing them with their Ardeine congeners, they evidently have no known 

 relatives so near akin to them as they are to each other. 1 



1 See Dr. J. Reinhardt's paper on the " Affinities of the Balseniceps " in the ' Transactions of the 

 Royal Danish Scientific Society/ for April, 1861,|pp. 135 154, and translated for the April Number 

 of the ' Ibis,' 1862 ; see also my paper on this bird, ' Trans. Zool. Soc.,' 1861, vol. iv, pp. 337341, 

 and pis. 66, 67. 



