686 SHUFELDT—OSTEOLOGY OF THE STRIGES. [Dec. 7, 
conveyed, though in a less marked degree, to the third or next ver- 
tebra below, where it occupies a position about the middle of the 
bone. As we pass toward the dorsal region this process becomes 
less and less prominent, being found set farther back on each suc- 
cessive vertebra; it disappears about entirely at the tenth, after 
which it rapidly begins to make its appearance again, assuming its 
former position in the middle of the vertebra, being quite evident 
in the twelfth in the shape of a pointed spine, while in the four- 
teenth it has the quadrate form, with extended crest, much as we 
see it inthe true dorsal vertebre. 
In the third vertebra the space between the pre- and postzyga- 
pophyses is almost entirely filled in, a minute foramen on either 
side alone remaining, by a lamina of bone extending from one pro- 
cess to the other, giving to this vertebra a much more solid appear- 
ance, which in reality it possesses above that attained by any of its 
fellows. This bony lamina is reduced in the fourth vertebra to a 
mere ‘‘interzygapophysial bar ’’ connecting the processes, while in 
the next succeeding one or two vertebre it occurs only on the pre- 
zygapophyses more as a tubercle, being directed backward, then 
disappearing entirely, to be found again only on a few of the last 
cervicals as an ill-defined knob, still retaining its original position. 
The diapophyses at first project nearly at right angles from their re- 
spective centra, then approach the median line by being directed 
more backward near the centre of the cervical division of the column, 
and on nearing the dorsals again gradually protrude more and more 
directly outward. The prezygapophyses of the ninth cervical sup- 
port well-marked anapophysial tubercles, which are feebly de- 
veloped also on avertebra or two above and below the ninth. The 
joints between the bodies of the cervicals of this Owl are upon the 
same plan as those found throughout the class; the anterior facet 
being concave from side to side, convex from above downward, 
the reverse being the case with the posterior facets, and when 
articulated fitting accurately into each other. The pleurapophysial 
elements, well marked in all the cervicals after passing the axis, 
become in the thirteenth vertebra a free cervical rib, about three 
millimetres in length, without neck or true head, being merely 
suspended on either side from the diapophyses of the vertebra, and 
freely movable on its exceedingly minute articulating facet. 
Attached to the last cervical we find the second pair of free ribs, 
about two-thirds as long as the first_ pair of dorsals or true ribs of 
wat 
