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Teh AN SA CT 1 ONS 
OF 
THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 

I. On the Axial Skeleton of the Struthionide. By Sv. GnorcEe Mivant, F.R.S., Sec.L.8., 
Professor of Biology at University College, Kensington. 
Received August 28, 1874. Read November 17th, 1874. - 
IN a paper read before the Zoological Society’ in June 1872, the axial skeleton of the 
Ostrich was described in considerable detail, that it might serve as a type and standard 
for future comparisons. The present paper is offered as a first instalment of a series of 
such comparisons; and the genera selected are the allied ones, Rhea, Dromeus, Casua- 
rius, Apteryx, and Dinornis, so that a general conception of the axial skeleton as it 
exists in the Struthionide may be arrived at. 
It has not been thought desirable here to enter into the same amount of detail as in 
the description of the typical form, in order not to occupy an undue space in the 
Society’s ‘Transactions.’ The detailed description of the type, already given, may 
facilitate further comparisons should they be desired. hea, however, appears so 
peculiar a form as to merit exceptional notice. 
The specimens examined are all in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons ; 
and the illustrations are thence taken by kind permission of the authorities of that 
Institution. 
THE AXIAL SKELETON OF RHEA. 
In Rhea there are fourteen cervical, and three cervico-dorsal vertebree (fig. 1, c & cp). 
There are both three dorsal and three dorso-lumbar vertebre, the first two of the latter 
not being ankylosed to the sacrum. ‘To these succeed about nine lumbar vertebre, all 
ankylosed together ; and these are followed by three sacral vertebra, the expanded rib-like’ 
1 See Trans. Zool. Soe. vol. vill. p. 385. 
VoL. X.—part I. No. 1.—WMarch, 1877. B 
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