MR. W. K. PARKER ON THE OSTEOLOGY OF BALAINICEPS REX. 347 
the feast and invited the guests, did not set unrelated strangers side by side. George 
Herbert saw this long ago: he says,— 
«Thy creatures leap not, but express a feast 
«Where all the guests sit close, and nothing wants. 
«Frogs marry fish and flesh; bats, bird and beast ; 
«« Sponges, non-sense and sense; mines, the earth and plants*.”” 
* Since this paper was written, the very interesting and important researches of Mr. A. D. Bartlett (see 
Proc. Zovl. Soc. 1861, p. 131) have proved, beyond all dispute, that the Baleniceps, like the Boat-bill, is 
essentially a Heron. The structure of its dermal system is, in all important respects, the same as that of 
Ardea, Cancroma, Eurypyga, and Botaurus. 
Our very first impression was that it would turn out to be much nearer akin to our native Ardea cinerea than 
to the Storks (Ciconia, Leptoptilus, and Mycteria). 
The genus Cancroma might be placed sub-generically to Baleniceps; yet although the former has the most 
out-spread bill, it is less aberrant from the true Herons than the latter. Indeed the Baleniceps seems, as it 
were, to have borrowed characters from the Umbre (Scopus)—a bird not so nearly related to the Herons as 
itself,—and also from the Ibises on one hand, and from the Macrodactylous Rails on the other. 
Not only does the Umbre differ from the true Herons, the Boat-bill, and the Balzniceps in the absence of the 
curious and characteristic powder-down patches, but its whole style of colouring is different; moreover the 
grey tint and the mealiness of the feathers of Balzeniceps are truly ardeine, whilst the sad yet sinister aspect of 
its eyes leaves no doubt upon the mind as to its real affinities. 
The skull of Cancroma would have been a perplexing study without the rest of its skeleton, which is remark- 
ably normal, being that of a true Heron shortened in joint and limb. Now add to that shortening of the joints 
and members of a truly ardeine skeleton which we see in Cancroma the necessary robustness, and we have the 
osseous structure of Baleniceps at once. 
But even in the enormous face and skull of this latter bird we have still nothing but teleological modifica- 
tions; and the character of the Heron’s skull is impressed upon every part. 
The only real difference between the vertebrae of Cancroma and those of Ardea is the comparative shortness 
of those of the former; the vertebra of Baleniceps are simply those of a gigantic Boat-bill. 
‘The sternal apparatus of Baleniceps is the most extraordinary part of its structure ; for although the scapule 
and coracoids are normal, yet the furculum and the sternum have undergone very unlooked-for changes. The 
furculum has very much the structure of that of the Totipalmate, and its angle is still more completely fused 
with the anterior end of the sternal keel than in birds of that family. In many respects the sternum is inter- 
mediate between that of the Heron and the Adjutant; but its anterior part is modified like that of the Scansores, 
