THE AM ERIC AX XATURALIS1 '. [Vol. XXXVI 1. 



Behind, the glossohyal {g/i) is broad and quadrilateral in outline, 

 the cerato-hyals being scarcely discernible at its posterior and 

 outer angles (cA). 



The Axial Skeleton.— The vertebras in Ceryle, when com- 

 pared with many other birds of about the same size, are large, in 

 comparison, with prominent processes. We find nothing to par- 

 ticularly distinguish the atlas. The plate closing in the neural 

 canal of this segment above is oblong in outline, with a minute 

 spine at each outer and posterior angle. The body is thick from 

 before, backwards, so the shallow cup for the occipital condyle 

 is never perforate, as it is in many birds. A large neural spine 

 is found on the axis, and the diapophyses arc elevated. Situated 

 somewhat posteriorly, a neural spine, smaller than that of the 

 axis, is found on the third vertebra, and this process diminishes 

 in size as we proceed backwards, to disappear entirely on the 

 ninth vertebra. The twelfth has a small one again, becomes 

 larger still in the thirteenth, and in the next of the series appears 

 very much like the elevated quadrate plates as seen in the dor- 

 sals. In the third vertebra the foramen found in the plate 

 between the pre- and postzygapophyses, as a common avian 

 characteristic, is here sometimes scarcely perceptible. But in 

 this vertebra two other features arise -the cervical extremity of 

 the vertebral canal, with minute parapophyses projecting from it 

 on either side, and, secondly, the appearance of an hypapophysis 

 beneath. In some of the leading cervical vertebrae after the 

 third, usually the fourth, fifth and sixth, there is a bridge of 

 bone, on either side, connecting the posterior margin of a para- 

 pophysis with the antero-external base of the corresponding 

 postzygapophysis. This bridge becomes absorbed behind, in the 

 sixth and may be in the seventh and eighth vertebra?, and then 

 projects from the parapophysis simply as a spine-like process. 

 The vertebral canal persists through the cervical chain to include 

 the twelfth vertebra ; in the thirteenth it is closed in by a very 

 delicate little rib, consisting of but scarcely anything more than 

 head, neck and tubercle. In the fourth vertebra the hypapophy- 



