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NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



thoroughly ossify, and their varieties offer important differences 

 for the several groups or families. Many of these have been ex- 

 tensively treated by Garrod, in a paper which he published in the 

 Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London for 1879. In 

 that paper Garrod remarks that " incidentally it may be mentioned, 

 with reference to the development of the extrathoracic tracheal loop 

 in the Cracidae, that, as far as my facts go, this loop is found in 

 the males only of the genera Crax, Pauxis, and Mitua ; whilst in 

 Penelope purpurascens, P. cristata, Pipile, and 

 Aburria it is wanting in both sexes, it being present in both sexes 

 of Penelope jacucaca. In the males of Penelope 

 pileata and Or talis albiventris it is present [accord- 

 ing to Temminck] ; the females I have not seen." 



In my specimens it was very well marked in the male, but the 

 loop in the female simply consisted of a very moderate turn in the 

 tracheal tube just in front of the fourehette of the shoulder girdle, 

 and it did not pass below that point. 



The following osteological characters will serve to characterize 

 the United -States Gallinae, and differentiate them from any other 

 group of birds. 



1 The external osseous narial apertures are large and subelliptical 

 in outline; no part of the septum narium ever ossifies. 



2 The lacrymals are free, scalelike bones with a descending por- 

 tion, which is spiculiform in all save Ortalis, where it is seen to be 

 stouter. 



3 A minute spinelike vomer may or may not exist. There are 

 peculiar vomerine ossifications in Meleagris. 



4 The maxillopalatines are small, freely pointed, delicate, flat- 

 tened laminae of bone, well separated from each other, mesially. 



5 Either palatine bone is long and narrow with its internal lamina 

 aborted, and the posteroexternal angle more than usually rounded 

 off. 



6 Basipterygoidal facets are present, being represented by sessile 

 disks, oval in outline, and flattened, situated at the base of the basi- 

 sphenoidal rostrum. They articulate with the pterygoids. 



7 The angular process of the mandible is much produced, and 

 curves upward. 



8 Three (Meleagris) or four of the vertebrae of the dorsal region 

 of the spine coossify to form one solid bone. 



9 A well developed prepubis is found to characterize the pelvis. 



