54 
THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 
the sacrum which produced the anterior concavity was usually in the body of the 3rd 
or 4th sacral, or in the plane of their junction, but more commonly in the 3rd vertebra. 
In two Sandwich and in two Andaman Islanders, however, the bend took place in the 
2nd sacral vertebra. That the anterior concavity of the sacrum is slighter in the black 
races than in Europeans has been recognised by previous observers. Sir Richard Owen 
referred to it in his comparison of the spine of a European with those of a Negro and 
Australian. 1 M. Bacarisse had directed attention to it in his work on the sacrum, 2 and 
M. Hamy has spoken of it in his description of the skeleton of a Negrito woman. 3 
3. Minor Peculiarities in the Pelves. 
I may now refer to some minor points in the anatomy of these pelves. The late 
Professor Kilian of Bonn, in an essay entitled Das Stachelbecken (pelvis spinosa, 
Akanthopelys), 4 described a condition of the pelvis occasionally occurring in European 
women, in which the ilio-pectineal line was raised into a knife-like edge, or had a distinct 
pointed process projecting from it. I examined my series of pelves with reference to this 
condition and found a sharp pectineal spinous process projecting upwards in a Sandwich 
Island woman, in a female Andaman Islander, and in a male Laplander. A similar projec- 
tion, but blunted at the apex, was present in the Manly Cove and Riverina Australians, 
in the Sikh, and in a Negress ; whilst a sharp pectineal line occurred in the Queensland 
Australian, a Negro, a male Hindoo, a female Andaman Islander, and one of the Guanche 
pelves. The pectineal spinous process projected from the ilio-pectineal line immediately 
internal to the pectineal eminence. In its position this process corresponded with the 
pectineal tubercle present in the pelves of Marsupials and Monotremes. 
Professor Zaaijer, in his memoir on the pelvis in the women of Java, already so 
frequently referred to, has called attention (p. 28) to a sulcus situated immediately 
anterior to the auricular surface of the ilium for articulation with the sacrum, which he 
has named sulcus prseauricularis. It was present in twenty-three of his specimens and 
was wanting only in three, but it varied both in breadth and depth. On examining 
forty-one European iliac bones he found it present but not strongly developed in seven 
specimens, just indicated in four bones, and entirely wanting in thirty specimens. He 
considers that it is associated with the attachment of the anterior sacro-iliac ligaments. 
In my series of pelves I find it present in most of the Australian pelves, in the Bush, 
Sandwich Islanders, one of the New Zealanders, a Negro, Hindoo, Chinese, Malay, in the 
Andaman Islanders, Guanche, Laplanders, and Esquimaux. I have also seen it in several 
1 Trans. Zool. Soc. Lond., vol. iv. p. 113. 
2 I regret that I have been unable to obtain a copy of M. Bacarisse’s thesis on the sacrum ; my knowledge of it is 
therefore solely derived from references in the writings of other anthropologists. 
J Etude sur un Squelette d’Aeta ; Nouvelles Archives du Museum, ser. 2, t. ii., Paris, 1879. 
4 Schilderung neuer Beckenform, Mannheim, 1854. 
