1909.] OF THE PASSERINE BIRD ARACHNOTHERA MAGNA, 535 
A. magna, and they present the usual passerine characters. Only 
tei, it would seem, are thus fused together among the Cerebide, 
but in these birds the pelvis is relatively shorter and wider than 
it is, asa rule, among the Nectariniidee. The Meliphagide have 
eleven—that is, in the species at hand, though Acanthogenys 
rufiguiaris may be an exception and possess only ten; in any 
case, an extra vertebra in the sacrum may account for one less in 
the caudal series. 
Among all small, ordinary, and more or less typical Passeres all 
over the world where they may occur, we meet with but little 
variety in the form of the pelvis. Its passerine characters are 
very uniform. Some birds of the group have it rather narrow 
and deep ; in others it is wider and more compressed from above 
downward, with the pubic elements far apart—but the general 
characters remain the same. In 4A. magna it is of the narrow 
and deep variety, with the iio-neuwral canals open for their entire 
lengths, and the “sacral crista” standing between them very 
prominent. On the postacetabular area parial foramina occur 
among the diapophyses of the ultimate sacral vertebrae. Anteriorly 
the ilia are truncated from their mesial angles, backward. 
Posterior to an acetabulum, on a side view, we note the large 
ischiadic foramen; a small, circular obturator foramen, which is 
barely separated from the large tendinal vacuity. Behind this 
last the ischium dips down, as usual in Passeres, to meet the 
pubis, or pubic style, near its distal termination. The post- 
acetabular, external free margin of the ilium to some extent 
overhangs the ischiadie foramen, while the preacetabular part 
of one of these bones is hollowed externally throughout its 
extent. The pelvis exhibits specific differences in 4. longirostris, 
where the postsacral foramina are large, and the internal iliac 
margins in the postacetabular region do not codssify with the 
sacrum. 
Among the Meliphagide, we find that in Entomyza cyanotis 
the ilio-neural canals or “grooves” remain open only anteriorly, 
and this is the case with other species of this family. On 
lateral view of this pelvis all the openings are very large, the 
osseous side of the bone here being reduced to the minimum 
thereby. This statement refers also to the large circular coty- 
loid ring (acetabulum) and the mergence of the obturator 
foramen with the tendinal vacuity. In Cyanerpes cyanea the 
essential characters are the same, but the pelvis, as a whole, 
is broader and flatter than it is in Arachnothera, coming in 
this respect nearer some of the Nectariniide, as, for example, 
Anthreptes malaccensis. 
Passing to the shoulder-girdle and sternum, we find all this part 
of the skeleton very distinctly passerine in character, the matter 
of size of the bones often being all there is to differentiate them 
with respect to the species they belong to: as, for example, the os 
furcula of such a species as Prosthemadera novee-hollandice is, as 
