194 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



weight, as in the case of the cochins, has something to do with the 

 matter, inducing an habitual disinclination for flight. Some 40 or 

 more years ago, the writer owned a flock of pure bred game fowls, 

 the hens being all of a plumage and very wild in habit. These 

 chickens when alarmed thought little of springing from the ground 

 together, and taking a flight of some five or six hundred yards, the 

 character of the flight being much as we see among quails. And if 

 I may be allowed here a still greater digression, I may add that I 

 once saw a number, some dozen or more, tame turkeys fly to- 

 gether over a half mile, and alight upon the very tops of some tall 

 hickory trees on the skirts of a forest. They had been suddenly 

 alarmed by a firearm's discharge; and yet these birds had been 

 notorious for several years as being more than clumsy flyers, a fact 

 that had been noted as they went to roost at night. These, however, 

 are simply cases wherein sudden fright seems to stimulate the long 

 latent power, which otherwise the past ages of disuse and in- 

 heritance are slowly but permanently abrogating. 



Pelvic limb. Much that I have stated in the foregoing para- 

 graphs with respect to the skeleton of the arm, applies with equal 

 force to the leg; though in domestic chickens there is every reason 

 to believe that this latter part of the skeleton will tend in time 

 rather to become stronger than otherwise, from greater use. 



The wild cock G . .b a n k i v a has a femur of a form and size 

 as we have represented it in two views in figures 21 and 22. It 

 will be seen that the trochanterian crest is very prominent, and in- 

 clined to arch over the summit of the bone. Some semblance of a 

 neck supports the " caput femoris," which latter is but feebly 

 marked, at the usual site, by a small pit for the ligamentum teres. 

 Adown the shaft we note the usual muscular lines, and this part of 

 the femur is much bowed to the front, and for its middle third, at 

 least, is cylindrical in form. The external condyle is the larger, and 

 situated lower on the shaft, being cleft as usual posteriorly, to 

 admit in articulation the head of the fibula. The femur, as in the 

 case with all the other bones of the pelvic limb of this bird, is non- 

 pneumatic. 



A sizable, transversely elongated patella is present [fig. 29]. 



Tibiotarsus has its cnemial crest but slightly elevated above its 

 summit, while the pro- and ectocnemial processes are low, twisted 

 to the outer aspect, and soon merge into the shaft in front. This 

 latter is nearly straight, subelliptical upon mid section, and longi- 

 tudinally furrowed for its lower third, anteriorly. In the male, the 



