1889.] ANATOMY OF burmeister's cariama. 595 



the two Seriemas ; tliere appears, from what he says, to be no 

 difference between the two species, but his account is a very brief 

 one and confined to the principal characters ; so far as it goes my 

 own observations are quite confirmatory of Gadow's paper. The bird 

 . is regarded by Gadow as near to Otis and Grus ; this view is still 

 retained ^ by Dr. Gadow. The osteology and visceral anatomy of 

 Cariama cristata have been worked out by Burmeister '. In the 

 course of the following remarks upon the osteology of Chunga, 

 which is comjjared with that of Cariama, I do not refer in detail to 

 Burmeister's description of the bones ; as to the visceral anatomy I 

 have not much to add to Burmeister's description. Cariama is 

 regarded by Burmeister as forming with. PsopAea a special group 

 closely allied to Cranes and more remotely to Otis and tlie Rails ; 

 the presumed affinities with Gypogeranus are quite superficial. Bur- 

 meister's views of the affinities of the bird are based upon visceral 

 as well as osteological characters, and I propose later on to e.xamine 

 this matter in connection with Psojihia, the anatomy of which I am at 

 present studying. I do not enter in this paper into the affinities of 

 Chunga and Cariama ; I merely attempt to differentiate the two 

 genera and to show that they are to be distinguished by well-marked 

 osteological characters, although in the visceral and muscular ana- 

 tomy they are very similar. 



Osteology^ 



The skull of Chunga (fig. 1, p. 596) is decidedly narrower in the 

 orbital region than that of Cariama (ibid. fig. 2). 



The lachrymal bones project furtlier out from the skull ; in Cariama 

 the distal region of each of these bones is bent sharply down and 

 comes to lie at right angles ; in Chunga the corresponding bones are 

 only gently curved and therefore appear to have a relation to the 

 skull different from that of Cariama. 



On the under surface of the skull several well-marked differences 

 between the two types are recognizable. 



The palatines in Chunga have a nearly straight posterior margin, 

 which lies tberefore in a direction nearly at right angles with the 

 lateral margins of the bone. 



In Cariama the angle formed by the external lateral and the 

 posterior margins of the bones is greater ; that is to say, the pos- 

 terior margin of the palatine bone does not coincide so nearly with 

 the direction of the transverse axis of the skull as it does in Chunga. 



The maxillo-palatines of Chunga extend further forwards than in 

 Cariama and each narrows gradually towards its anterior extremity ; 

 in Cariama., on the contrary, these bones show a greater deficiency 

 in ossification anteriorly, and so come to be somewhat abrujitly 



^ " On the Tasonomic Value of the Intestinal ConTolutions in Birds," P. Z. S. 

 1889, p. 303. 



- " Beitrage zur Naturgeschichte der Seriema," Abh. nat. Ges. Halle, i. (1854) 

 p. 17. 



