200 MR. W. K. PARKER ON THE OSTEOLOGY 



exaggerated. The " coracoid " of the true " Gallinacese," e. g. Gallus, Lagopus, Crax, 

 Talegalla, is a clumsy bone, especially in the strong species ; it is also of great relative 

 length : in the Pigeons it is long, but its processes and faces and ridges are exquisitely 

 cut and turned ; so they are also in the Plovers, but in them the bone is relatively short. 

 In the Sijrrhaptes (PI. XLI. fig. 4, cr.) it agrees in the condition of its processes with 

 both Pigeons and Plovers ; but it is as short as in the Lapwing, relatively to the size of 

 the sternum. It is pneumatic, as in the Pigeon- and the Fowl-tribes, not oily as in the 

 Plovers. The same confusion, as it were, of conditions is seen in the furculum (PI. 

 XXXVIII. //•. & PI. XLI. fig. 4, fr.) ; and this is of great importance, for it may be said 

 to be an extremely mobile bone as to form. True to the marvellous uniformity of struc- 

 ture in almost half the known birds, viz. the " Corvinae," " FringiHinse," " Sylviina;," 

 and the sundry families that lie around and among them, such as the " Tyranninse," 

 " Laniinse,' " Muscicapinae," and the Hirundine groups, in all these there is scarcely 

 the least oscillation of form in the furculum, nor, indeed, of the whole sternal apparatus. 

 This is true also of those outliers of the Corvine group that are found in Australia, 

 viz. the Piping Crow [Gymnorhina), the Coronica, and the Anthochara. But both the 

 furculum and the sternum begin to lose their characters in such genera as Petroica and 

 Dasyornis. Noting all this, I think we may take the furculum as a sort of delicate in- 

 strument to indicate and to measure the rise and the fall of types. 



What change there is in the furculum of the Talegalla and the Hemipodius (PI. 

 XXXV. figs. 5 &6,/r.) looks at first sight to be passerine, but it is more likely to be 

 pluvialine or ralline ; the change from the V- to the U-shape is greatest in the Talegalla ; 

 the enfeeblement of the angular process, and the loss of its straightness of direction, 

 are an approach to the U-shaped furculum of the Plover, which has a small flat process 

 at right angles with the crura of the bone. But one of the most important conditions 

 of the typical Gallinaceous "merry-thought" is the straightness of the crura them- 

 selves. Now this character is wanting in Crax, Talegalla, Hemipodius, and Syrrhaptes, 

 although it is preserved in Columba, where the process at the angle is quite lost, and 

 where one crus passes below into the other smoothly and insensibly. But all these, 

 except Syrrhaptes, have retained the length of the crura, in harmony with the length of 

 the coracoids : this character is gone in Syrrhaptes (PI. XXXVIII. /r. & PI. XLI. fig.4,/r.). 

 The upper ends of the crura have retained their gallinaceous breadth in Syrrhaptes, 

 and they diverge upwards more than in Vanellus ; the whole bone is also weaker and 

 smaller, both actually as well as relatively. There is also a mere bud of a process at 

 the angle ; but it does not go back as in the Lapwing. In the side-view the crura are 

 nearly as arched as in Vanellus ; whilst this arching increases greatly in many water- 

 birds, even amongst the " Grallae," e.g. in Numenius. The great osseous sternal 

 breastplate increases in bony perfection in the following order, viz. Apteryx, Struthio, 



Owen's Mem. pi. 1. figs. 1, 51, pi. 2. figs. 1, 51). Amongst the "Altrices," the Woodpeckers (Picw*) have 

 a blunt scapula, but iu them it is almost crosier-shaped. 



