706 SHUFELDT—OSTEOLOGY OF THE STRIGE*. [Dee. 7, 
mal extremity, externally, above the shaft, there is a flat and 
roughened surface, bounded above by the curved trochanterian 
ridge. This surface forms the major part of the great trochanter. 
There is no trochanter minor present. ‘The trochanterian ridge is 
the highest part of the bone, when it is held vertically ; it lies in 
the antero-posterior plane, with the femur in its natural position, 
the bird standing erect; from it, sloping directly inward and 
occupying the remainder of the summit between it and the head, is. 
a smooth articular facet, broadest externally, merging into the 
globular head internally. 
With the head it constitutes the articular surface for the pelvis— 
it being opposed to the antitrochanterian facet of the ilium, while 
the caput femoris plays in the cotyloidring. The excavation for the 
ligamentum teres on the latter is conical and deep, consuming a 
good part of the bone; it is situated on its upper and inner aspect. 
In looking into the relation existing among head, neck and shaft 
of the femur of this bird, we must observe that if the straight line 
lying in the middle of the surface of the internal aspect of the shaft 
were produced upward, it would pass through the centre of the 
facet, at the summit—if anything, nearer the trochanterian ridge 
than it does to the head. ‘This facet also is notably narrower just 
before arriving at the head than at any other point. Again, the 
plane passing through the external and circular boundary of the 
head makes an angle of a good forty-five degrees with this line, so 
that with these facts in view we can hardly assert in the case of the 
species before us, as do some authors on comparative anatomy in 
describing this bone 7” genera/, that the head of the feumur is 
either nearly at right angles with or is sessile with the shaft. It 
would appear, though, that it has quite as much of a neck to boast 
of as the anatomical neck of humerus or the neck of the scapula de- 
scribed for man’s skeleton in works on human anatomy. The shaft 
throughout its length, until it begins to approach the distal con- 
dyles, where it is subcompressed and expanded antero-posteriorly, 
is nearly cylindrical, bends slightly backward at its lower end, and 
offers for examination merely the intermuscular ridges, with the 
linea aspera feebly marked, and the nutrient foramen, all of which 
maintain their usual positions on the bone. At the distal extremity 
the rotular canal, the intercondyloid noteh and the popliteal fossa 
are all strongly produced, giving due prominence to the condyles, 
internal and external, between which they form the dividing tract- 
