SHUFELDT. ] OSTEOLOGY OF THE CATHARTIDZA. 767 
the great air passages, for they are more than foramina, that lead into 
the bone. No hypocleidium is found attached to the thoroughly united 
clavicles of these birds, below, but a little ridge occupies the usual site be- 
neath and a characteristic tip projects from in front in all of them. Be. 
hind the borders are rounded, in front they are sharpened and produced 
out to the point of the aforesaid tip or anterior projection. With the 
scapular apparatus in position, we find that the axis of the shafts of the 
coracoids are in line with the long axis of the sternal body ; that these 
bones diverge from each other at an angle-that is equal to the angle of 
the clavicular fourchette. From behind their heads the articulated 
scapule spring out at nearly right angles, and pass backwards parallel 
with each other, to be deflected outwards only as we near their posterior 
points or extremities: After closing in the large “‘tendinal foramina” 
by its broad superior dilatations, the furculum dips directly backwards 
to bring its lower arch into the recess of the anterior concavity of the 
carina of the sternum, but it never touches this bone at that point, and 
its near approach seems to vary for the same species; it is quite distant 
in the specimen of the King Vulture we present in figure 105, but in 
another it comes mueh nearer: 
In the vast majority of the diurnal Falconide of this country, and, no. 
doubt, in those of the Old World too, the clavieular heads have a much 
more extensive articulation with the superior ends of the coracoids than 
Oatharista atrata. Neophron percenopierus. 
Circus hudsonius. 
we have just ascribed to the Cathartide; this arrangement is closely 
followed by Neophron, and, in short, the entire scapular apparatus of 
this bird is indubitably stamped with the well-known characteristics 
that mark this arch among the Hawks and Eagles. So interesting and 
