162 MR. n. G. SEELET O'S OSSEOUS EESEMBLA.NCES 



look doiomoard and the posterior zygapophyses look upward, and 

 in every respect the posterior end of the vertebra has the 

 characters whicli usually occur at the anterior end. To the ma- 

 jority of caudal vertebrae in Crocodiles bsemapopbyses are deve- 

 loped ; while scarcely an indication of sucb a structure is seen 

 among birds. 



The sternum of the Crocodile is unlike that of birds in form : 

 it never has the keel which characterizes the majority of birds ; 

 and it never has the breadth and basin-form which characterize 

 adult struthious birds. But similarly it gives attachment to 

 several pairs of ribs and to the coracoid bones, which have a 

 similar elongated compressed form, though they have not the 

 synovial and close osseous connexion with the sternum which 

 characterizes the Avian type, and are directed more out- 

 ward. 



In some birds, as the Penguin, a precoracoid portion of the 

 coracoid bone grows down and encloses a coracoid foramen com- 

 parable to that of the Crocodile. 



The scapula meets the coracoid at a similar angle to form the 

 shoulder-joint in struthious birds and Crocodiles ; and the bone 

 has much the same general form in those birds that it has in 

 Crocodiles, differing chiefly in being much narrower from side to 

 side. The Crocodile scapula has not the tubercle which in birds 

 and the lower mammals usually gives attachment to the clavicle. 

 In birds with a carinate sternum the scapula meets the coracoid 

 at about a right angle. 



The humerus in Crocodile has about the same proportional 

 stoutness and form which characterize Parrots. The proximal 

 articulation is more convex in birds, where the head has a process 

 on its ulnar side not seen in Crocodiles ; the radial crest is 

 similar in the two. At the distal end, in carinate birds, the con- 

 dyles, especially on the radial side, are more developed ; in this 

 point the Crocodile is better pa,ralleled by struthious birds like 

 the Ostrich. 



The ulna of the Crocodile is most nearly paralleled among 

 birds in stoutness and form by the African Ostrich ; but in the 

 Ostrich the proximal end does not curve so much inwards towards 

 the radius, nor is it so massive ; the distal end is directed further 

 inward. 



The radius of the Crocodile is similarly comparable to that 

 of the Ostrich, with a like difference at the distal end. The two 



