188 MEMOIRS OF THE CARNEGIE MUSEUM 



thus in harmony with the other bones, and aids 'materially in emphasizing the 

 superior size of P. perspicillatus. 



" The appended tables give the measurements of the cranium and sternum here 

 described, compared with the corresponding parts of other] species. The measure- 

 ments of the previously described sternum, ascribed to P. perspicillatus, are repeated 

 and an error of the first-given table corrected. The length from anterior end of 

 carina to end of meso xiphoid is said to be 104 mm., when it should have been 

 90 mm. 



Unfortunately the skull of P. carbo now available is smaller than that of the 

 individual used as a term of comparison in the previous paper 18 on Pallas' 

 Cormorant." 



Additional information in regard to the osteology of the Phalacrocoracidss will 

 be found further on in the present memoir, as well as under the explanation of the 

 plates ai its close. 



Osteology of the Pelecanidse. 



(Plate XX VII., Figs. 31-41 ; Plate XXVIII., Fig. 42, and Plate XXX., Fig. 49.) 



Sometime during the year 1864, the writer collected on Indian Cay of the 

 Bahama Banks, a fine adult male specimen of Pelecanus fuscus. From it I took the 

 skull, and have it before me at the present writing. 



Measuring from the transverse cranio-facial groove we find the osseous superior 

 mandible in this specimen to be somewhat less than four times as long as the remain- 

 ing part of the skull. A vertical section made through the middle of the posterior 

 third of this mandible at right angles to its long axis gives an elliptical figure, with 

 the minor axis in the horizontal plane. The anterior two thirds has a sharp lateral 

 edge, while the extremity is armed with a powerful decurved hook. About half of 

 the fore part of this enormous beak is compressed from above downward, a com- 

 pression that is accompanied by a gradual widening of the bone to near the end, 

 where it slopes in toward the hook in the median line. 



The maxillo-palatines constitute a great spongy mass that fills up a space anterior 

 to the rhinal chamber. They unite in the median line, are bounded above by the 

 premaxillary, below by the united palatines, while the anterior extremity of the 

 maxillary fuses with the mass at about its middle on either side. (Compare with 

 Figure 36, Plate XXVII.) 



In form this maxillo-palatine mass is wedge-shaped, with the broad end anchy- 

 losed with the under side of the united nasal processes of the premaxillary. 



18 Loc. cit. 



