162 THE SECRETARY 0>~ ADDITIONS TO THE MENAGERIE. [Mar. 6, 



ordinary short and otherwise weak pelvic limb-bones as com- 

 pared with the very lengthy pectoral ones, and the size of the rest 

 of the bird, it stands quite unique in the suborder to which 

 it belongs. More remarkable than all, however, are the many 

 characters in its skull that powerfully recall the Albatrosses 

 among the Tubinares. These are so evident that one is almost led 

 to believe, if it be not actually the case, that the strong hooked 

 beak in the skull of Fregata is a Diomedean rather than a Pele- 

 canine character 1 . Apart from the free ends of the furcula 

 coalescing with the coracoids, there are characters in the sternum 

 and shoulder-girdle of Frer/ata that also recall the forms of the 

 corresponding bones in the Albatrosses, but beyond this there 

 appears to be nothing else in the skeleton of the Man-o'-War 

 Bird at all reminding us of those birds. 



Since this relationship exists between Frer/ata and Diomedea, 

 remote as it may be, it nevertheless, taken in connection with 

 what has been pointed out above in regard to Phaethon and Puffinus, 

 ought to convince us that the Steganopodes are more closely con- 

 nected with the Tubinares than they are with the Longipennes. 



There are those who claim to see a kinship existing between the 

 Ace i pit res and the Fregatoidea, but there are surely no indications 

 of it so far as the osteology of any of the representatives of the 

 two suborders in question is concerned. 



March 6, 1894. 

 Dr. A. Gunther, F.E.S., Vice-President, in the Chair. 



The Secretary read the following report on the additions to the 

 Society's Menagerie during the month of February 1S04 : — 



The total number of registered additions to the Society's Mena- 

 gerie during the month of February was 83, of which 66 were by 



1 In my extended account of the osteology of the Steganopodes, referred to 

 above, a full description of the skull of the Man-o'-War Bird is given, illustrated 

 by several figures from photographs. From that account I select some of the 

 statements: — "For example, both superficially and otherwise the skull of 

 Fregata resembles the skull in some species of Albatrosses (Diomedeidte) in not 

 a few respects. This not only applies to the lower jaw, where the similarity is 

 very evident, but also to a number of characters in the cranium and face. The 

 long powerfully hooked superior mandibles are a good deal alike, as are the 

 masillo-palatinee. Fregata has a vomer that approaches that bone in the 

 Albatrosses ; its palatines are not far off, and even still less so its pterygoids 

 and quadrates. The lacrymals are upon the same plan of structure, ami the 

 entire cranium proper in the Man-o'-War Bird might well answer for that of 

 an Albatross but slightly removed from the typical stock. Fregata, however, 

 lacks the deep supraorbital glandular fossa; so characteristic of the Diomedetda, 

 and, from above downwards, the skull is somewhat more compressed than it is 

 in, for example, such a species as the Short-tailed Albatross (L. albatrus)." 

 [Then follows a detailed comparison, character by character, of the skull and 

 associate parts as found in Fregata aquila and Diomedea albatrus, but that 

 comparison is of too great length to insert here as a footnote.] 



