No. 482] OSTEOLOGY OF THE TV BIN ARES 121 



lower margin of the patella. The remaining characters of the 

 balance of the pelvic limb of Puffinus have already been correctly 

 described by Forbes, and consequently it will not be necessary to 

 reproduce his description in this place. He has also compared 

 those characters with those found in various other representatives 

 of this group of birds including Diomedea, Pelecanoides, the 

 Oceanitidae, and the Petrels, {loc. cit, pp. 424, 425.) 



In examining the skeleton in the Oceanitidae I found among 

 other things that they lack in the skull the basipterygoid processes, 

 and that in them the uncinate bones, found in the skulls of other 

 Tubinares are also absent. The posterior margin of the xiphoidal 

 extremity of the sternum, is usually quite entire; and they have 

 but twenty-one cervico-dorsal vertebrae. These birds also possess, 

 in contradistinction to the Procellariidae, short and stout humeri, 

 a character which is also seen in the long bones of the fore-arm. 



III. On the Taxonomy and Affinities of the Tubinares. 



There is a combination of a few marked osteological characters 

 which will serve to distinguish any member of the present suborder 

 from any other existing avian group. The Tubinares all have 

 their skulls characterized by the presence of conspicuous supra- 

 orbital glandular depressions, which are large and generally deeply 

 sculpt. 



They are likewise all holorhinal, as well as schizognathous 

 birds, wherein the vomer is usually of consi<lerable size, being 

 more or less broad, pointed anteriorly, and often depressed and 

 arched antero-posteriorly. Combined with these characters we 

 find that in them the hallux of pes to be either absent or else 

 rudimentary^ in that it is reduced to a single joint. Not more 

 than twenty-three cervico-dorsal vertebrae, nor less tlian twenty- 

 one are seen to exist. The sternum is short and broad, with its 

 posterior border either entire, or regularly 4-notched, or of an 

 asymmetrical pattern, or even jagged. The patella, when present, 

 is free and small, articulating high up on the posterior aspect of 

 the much-produced procnemial crest of the tibio-tarsus. The 

 sternal extremity of a coracoid is of remarkable width, being 

 nearly as wide there as the bone is long from summit to midpoint 



