Prof. R. Owen on the Solitaire. 93 
‘ subelliptic “foramen ischiadicum”’ (h) as in Didus. The 
pubis (61) does not send upward a process to meet the down- 
ward one from the ischium, and so define the “ tendinal ”’ (o0') 
from the “ obturator ”’ (0) interspace. 
The pelvis in the male skeleton shows the whole extent of 
the entire lower border of the ischium; and its slender hinder 
termination is produced into contact with the pubis (64), from 
which bone a rough low tuberosity rises to form the syndes- 
mosis with the ischium (63). On the left. side the extremity 
of the ischium is broken off; but the syndesmotic process of 
the pubis testifies to an original union like that on the nght 
side. 
Here, therefore, we have an acceptable proof of an osteo- 
logical correspondence with existing doves, which the imper- 
fect examples of the pelvis previously acquired did not exhibit. 
The scapula of Pezophaps repeats, in a minor degree, 
the angular beginning of the hinder thin border above 
the elongate neck of the bone, but projects less as a pro- 
cess than in Didus * ; the distal or free end expands as in 
Didus. 'The straightness of the bone is* more marked than 
in Didus. 
The metacarpus of the male (PI. VII. fig. 1, 11.) repeats the 
tuberous process figured by Prof. Newton in pl. xix. figs. 87- 
90 of his richly illustrated memoir, and testifies, as he 
shows, to the value of Leguat’s record, and to the accuracy of 
that original observer of the living bird. 
If a single specimen of a metacarpal bone of some unknown 
animal, such as is figured in Pl. VII. fig. 1, 11., had previously 
come to the hands of a paleontologist, he would have con- 
cluded the bony tumour to have been of morbid nature and 
origin, and set it down as an exceptional pathological pheno- 
menon. Any other opinion (above all, one holding such 
tumour to be a constant structure, functional in the healthy 
individual, and of moment in guiding to a knowledge of the 
species or sex) would have hazarded the estimate of such 
palzonlogist’s standing in his science. 
In the rich collection of bones of Pezophaps, the subject of 
Prof. Newton’s instructive paper (tom. cit.), there were not fewer 
than thirty-two specimens of the metacarpus. ‘ That it 
would be very short was a safe inference from what we know 
of it in other flightless birds; but it could hardly have been 
expected to obtain from it such a singular confirmation of 
Leguat’s statement regarding a remarkable peculiarity in the 
* ‘Memoir on the Dodo,’ wt supra, pl. viii. figs. 6, 9, 51. 
+ Phil. Trans. 1869. 
