1882.] DR. W. BLASIUS ON BIRDS FROM CERAM. 697 



extinct wingless birds from Binornis. So, likewise, with parts of 

 the skeleton which are connected with the sternum. 



The coracoid in Oeydromus, Notornis, Aptornis, and Apteryx • 

 unites with the scapula at angles progressively detracting from the 

 power of the muscles inserted into the humerus for the raising and 

 protracting the wing. The coracoids, besides change of position, also 

 lose in relative size, especially in their proximal or sternal breadth ; 

 consequently they require shorter grooves for articulation with the 

 sternum ; and as the loss proceeds from the mesial angle outwards 

 a greater space intervenes between the sternal ends of the coracoids. 

 Tracing the flightless birds from the Kivis to the Wood-hens, this 

 interspace progressively decreases ; tracing the volant species onward 

 or upward, we find in some of the best flyers that the fore border of 

 the sternum ceases to co-expand with sternal expansions of the cora- 

 coids, the articular grooves decussate, and the mid part of the fore 

 border of the breast-bone shows a double articular groove. 



The clavicular arch, or "merry thought," manifests a concomitant 

 loss of strength, becomes filamentary, resumes its typical character of 

 parial " collar-bones," and finally disappears. 



But these gradations, with concomitant fall to keelless breast-bones, 

 are related physiologically, narrowly or specially, to corresponding 

 proportions of parts of the osseous and muscular systems, and, to 

 similar degrees, with final loss of volant power. The food, the ovi- 

 position, tlie nidification, and other habits of flightless terrestrial 

 birds may show no corresponding samenesses. Such vital differences, 

 with the several corresponding totalities of avian organization, 

 disperse or rank the so-called " Ratite " birds, in a natural and 

 philosophical system of Ornithology, into different reduced, perhaps 

 extinct, groups or orders of the class : and the well-marked modi- 

 fications of form and pro])ortion in keelless sternums, exemplified, in 

 plate 57 of the third volume of our 'Transactions,' may help to 

 point the way towards the group to which their several possessors 

 may be shown by future found remains to be naturally affined. 



2. On a CollectioTi of Birds fi'om the Isle of Ceram made by 

 Dr. Platen in November and December 1881. By Dr. 



WiLHELM BlASIUS, C.M.Z.S. 



[Eeceived November 13, 1882.] 



Dr. Platen, the traveller and naturalist, who has of late years 

 become favourably known to the scientific world by his collections 

 in Malacca, Romeo, and other places of the Indo-Malayan region, 

 made in the month of November of last year a stay of nearly four 

 weeks at Lokki, on the island of Ceram, going there from Amboina. 

 He collected on this occasion forty-nine skins of birds, which have 

 been transmitted to my friend Mr. A. Nehrkorn of Riddagshausen, 

 and by him kindly given to me for identification and classification. 

 > Trniif?. Zool. Soc. vol. ii. (1838) p. 257, p 55. %• 2. 



