MR. W. K. PARKER ON THE OSTEOLOGY OF BAL^NICEPS REX. 347 



the feast and invited the guests, did not set unrelated strangers side by side. George 

 Herbert saw this long ago : he says, — 



" Thy creatures leap not, but express a feast 



" Where all the guests sit close, and nothing wants. 



" Frogs marry fish and flesh ; bats, bird and beast ; 



" Sponges, non-sense and sense ; mines, the earth and plants*." 



* Since this paper was written, the very interesting and important researches of Mr. A. D. Bartlett (see 

 Proc. Zool. Soc. 1861, p. 131) have proved, beyond all dispute, that the Balteniceps, like the Boat-bill, is 

 essentially a Heron. The structure of its dermal system is, in all important respects, the same as that of 

 Ardea, Cancroma, Eurypyga, and Botaurus. 



Our very first impression was that it would turn out to be much nearer akin to our native Ardea cinerea than 

 to the Storks (Ciconia, Leptoptilus, and Mycteria). 



The genus Cancroma might be placed sub-generically to Balmniceps ; yet although the former has the most 

 out-spread bill, it is less aberrant from the true Herons than the latter. Indeed the Baljeniceps seem";, as it 

 were, to have borrowed characters from the Umbre (Scopus)- — a bird not so nearly related to the Herons as 

 itself, — and also from the Ibises on one hand, and from the Macrodactylous Rails on the other. 



Not only does the Umbre differ from the true Herons, the Boat-bill, and the Balseuiceps in the absence of the 

 curious and characteristic powder-down patches, but its whole style of colouring is different ; moreover the 

 grey tint and the mealiness of the feathers of Balaeniceps are truly ardeine, whilst the sad yet sinister aspect of 

 its eyes leaves no doubt upon the mind as to its real affinities. 



The skull of Cancrotna would have been a perplexing study without the rest of its skeleton, which is remark- 

 ably normal, being that of a true Heron shortened in joint and limb. Now add to that shortening of the joints 

 and members of a truly ardeine skeleton which we see in Cancroma the necessary robustness, and we have the 

 osseous structure of Balaeniceps at once. 



But even in the enormous face and skull of this latter bird we have still nothing but teleological modifica- 

 tions ; and the character of the Heron's skull is impressed upon every part. 



The only real difference between the vertebrse of Cancroma and those of Ardea is the comparative shortness 

 of those of the former ; the vertebrse of Balteniceps are simply those of a gigantic Boat-bill. 



The sternal apparatus of Balteniceps is the most extraordinary part of its structure ; for although the scapulje 

 and coracoids are normal, yet the furculum and the sternum have undergone very unlooked-for changes. The 

 furculum has very much the structure of that of the Totipalmatae, and its angle is still more completely fused 

 with the anterior end of the sternal keel than in birds of that family. In many respects the sternum is inter- 

 mediate between that of the Heron and the Adjutant ; but its anterior part is modified like that of the Scansores, 



