FROM THE ZEBBUG CAVE, MALTA. 123 
longer in proportion than in the recent kinds, we shall see that the great extinct Swan 
was rather generalized in character, being somewhat of a Goose, possessing, as he did, 
longer legs and shorter toes than the typical Swans. 
It would appear, however, that, like the gigantic Adjutant among the Storks, this bird 
had its wings of the full relative size: the immense ulna shows this (see Pl. XXX. figs. 1, 
4 & 5). 
As the feet were shorter, it is probable that the extinct bird was not so expert at 
rowing as the smaller but more elegant kinds; on land he may have shown better; and 
perhaps he was altogether more terrestrial. 
It is worthy of remark, that the most generalized type of all the “ Lamellirostres,” 
viz. the Palamedea—that in which the lamelle of the beak are arrested in their growth, 
and which has no webs to connect the toes—has the digits longer even than the Swans. 
This bird, however, is not unrelated to the Grallatorial “ Macrodactyli.” 
Cygnus musicus (?). 
The most important bone of those belonging to the smaller Swan, which, as the fore- 
going list shows, are very numerous, is the front part of the sternum. This fine frag- 
ment is well shown in Pl. XXX. figs. 1, 2, 3; and, besides exhibiting the separated 
coracoid grooves, anterior part of keel, costal process, condyles for sternal ribs, ridge for 
middle pectoral, &c., is especially interesting because of the well-displayed anterior part 
of the cavity for the wind-pipe. Fig. 3 shows the smooth, rounded cavity ; fig. 2 part of 
its left wall; and fig. 1 the eminence caused by it on the midline of the sternum: the 
two rows of wind-passages are also well seen. 
This, then, is the sternum of one of the Wild Swans, perhaps the greater species 
(C. musicus), perhaps C. bewickit, or, it may be, some species nearly allied to these. At any 
rate it is interesting to find that C. musicus is still to be found in lands bordering the 
Mediterranean, the Rev. H. B. Tristram having, in his last travels, received it from 
Solomon’s Pool, near Jerusalem (see Proc. Zool. Soc., 1864, p. 453). 
The similarity of the bones in the species of Swans is so great that I feel it to be 
unnecessary to describe the rest of the bones of the smaller kind; they are nearly all 
fragmentary, like those of C. falconeri, and the fragments are in the same good condition. 
The birds which owned these bones varied in size from that of a small female tame 
Swan to that of a medium-sized Black Swan; yet the difference is scarcely more than 
varietal and serual. There may have been more than two species buried in the Zebbug 
Cave; but we lack positive evidence. 
The smallest “lamellirostral” bones are intermediate in size between those of the 
Wild Goose (Anser cinereus) and those of the Mallard (Anas boschas); so that they may 
have belonged to a small female Bernicle, such as the black-faced kind (Bernicla 
brenta). 
But, few as these are, they probably belonged to two kinds; for the femur and tibia 
