170 PKOi'. T. J. PAlllvEll UN 'i'HJi CItANlAL [Feb. 14, 



recurrence of the parts gave the impression thiit the conditious 

 met with might ha\'e been due to iucreased tension on the right 

 side during growth. This was favoured by tlie fact tliat the right 

 tibia and fibuLa, which were abnormal and angulated, bore traces 

 of early fracture with subsequent synostosis, and by t!iat of the 

 non-distortion of the left anterior half of the presternum. It \^■as, 

 however, rendered the less likely by the fact that the .xiphisternum, 

 together with the posterior (fifth) mesosternal rudiment ', v\ as but 

 feebly ossitied ; and by the fact that the former (tig. ] , st'"), instead 

 of being posteriorly expanded as is most frequently the case with 

 normal adults, was displaced to the left side, keeled along its 

 left-hand border, and downwardly rotated. Although the depar- 

 tures from the normal met with in the sternum under consideration 

 may conceivably have been due to purely mechanical causes, con- 

 sequent upon the non-union of parts, they suggest the Avell- 

 kuown characteristics - of that of the Anthropomorpha, among 

 Primates ; and, whatever their determining causes, the regularly 

 recurring alternation of the mesosternal elements of opposite sides 

 is especially interesting in this conjunction, as that has been in- 

 dependently recorded by Parker^ and Plover'' for the (apparently 

 normal) de-\'eloping sternum of the Oi-ang. 



^ Prof. T. Jeffery Parker, D.Sc, F.R.S., read a Memoir on the 

 Cranial Osteology, Classification, and Phylogeuy of the Binornithidce, 

 of which the following is an abstract : — 



The author begins by giving a brief account of his material, 

 amounting altogether to about 120 skulls, most of them in the 

 Otago University Museum, Duuedin, Canterbury College, Christ- 

 church, New Zealand, and the British Museum (Natural History). 

 Two specimens, one of Emeus, sp. a, in the Dunedin Museum, 

 and one of Mesopteryx, species /3, in the Wellington Museum, are 

 quite perfect. 



Many of the skulls examined could not be assigned with certainty 

 to any known species, having been found quite apart from the rest 

 of the skeletons ; they are distinguished in the paper by (xreek 

 letters in order to avoid confusion with certain species designated 

 by English letters by Mr. Lydekker. Several species are known 

 only by the crania, and in these cases the determination of the 

 genus is to some extent conjectural, since the premaxilla and man- 

 dible afford the most striking and reliable generic characters. 



A detailed description of the cranial osteology is given, the 

 various genera and species being cohipared point by point. By the 



' The investigations of Ruge and Burne forbid our regarding the redaction 

 of this as necessarily indicative of a persistently embryonic state (rf. Burne, 

 P. Z.S. 1891, p. 159). . 1 \.' 



- Viz., increase in breadth, with diminution of length and reduction of the 

 ensiform process. 



' Ray Soc. Monograph on the Development of the Shoulder-girdle and 

 Sternum, pi. xxx. (ig. IB. 



■' Osteology of the Mammalia, ed. 3, p. 90, fig. o2. 



