160 MR. W. K. PARKER ON THE OSTEOLOGY 
The large perforated episternum is perfectly typical. The pelvis of Dendrortyx 
reminds the observer of that of Hemipodius ; but it is wider in the postfemoral part, 
and really keeps close to the structure of the Quail’s pelvis. The long and arched 
os femoris answers well to its counterpart in the Quail. The four coalesced bones, 
followed by the one separate vertebra in front of the sacrum, is perfectly typical; and 
the rest of the vertebre, and the ribs with their appendages, all speak the same 
language’. 
The long ‘‘ military’ spur dies out in the dwarfs of the typical group; not so the 
furious pugnacity of the jealous males: the female Hemipodius, notwithstanding her 
relationship to the Turtledove on the one hand and to the gentle Plover on the other, 
yet possesses this ‘‘ cursedness” of the Gamecock and the Quail, and that in an 
undiminished degree’. 
c. The ultratypical ‘‘ Rasores”’ or ‘‘ Megapodiine.”’ 
Example: The Brush-Turkey (Talegalla lathami). 
There are many reasons why the phasianine Gallinaceous birds should be considered 
typical ; they are furthest in both outward and inward structure from all other groups ; 
whilst the other subfamilies have one or more decided leanings towards outlying types. 
The voice, so simple and yet so peculiar, and proceeding from a very simple apparatus, 
(the inferior larynx having no special muscles), the plumage of many members of the 
group attaining the highest degree of gorgeousness—a gorgeousness only rivalled, not 
surpassed, by the Birds of Paradise and the insect-like Humming-birds,—and, lastly, 
the peculiar armature of the legs, render these birds very peculiar, and quite distinct from 
all others. In the subfamilies all these things fall off: the spurs are gone, the plumage 
has become sombre, and, in the Sandgrouse and Megapods, the inferior speech-organ 
has attained a pair of special muscles. In the typical species the most direct structural 
relationship is, leaving out the other Gallinaceous subfamilies, with the aberrantly 
struthious Tinamous’; and the typical Fowl is a midway stepping-stone from the least 
ornithic birds, the Ostriches, to the most ornithic birds, the Crows and Songsters. 
Perhaps the most inherent affinity, the one that keeps breaking out in the most 
unexpected ways in the subfamilies, is with the Grallatorial groups. We shall come 
to see that the Struthious bird does not, as it were, pass at once into the Gallinaceous 
form, but seems to hesitate and look ploverward,—the first breaking-up of the mass 
being compound, and requiring fresh and fresh specialization before the true and proper 
‘ I shall speak of the digestive organs of Dendrortyx when I come to describe those of Talegalla. 
* Mr. Blyth informs me that the female Hemipodius is better-coloured, larger, and far more pugnacious than 
her mate. The large size of this shrew is a very important fact ; for in the Plover tribes it is very common: 
and the osteology of the Hemipodius is in some respects decidedly pluvialine. 
* The relationship existing between the whole Gallinaceous tribe with the “ Anatinze,” of which latter group 
Palamedea is the most “ rasorial’”’ form, will be spoken of at the end of this paper. 
