92 The Philippine Journal of Science ms 
lower jaw and is capable, in life, of being moved up and down 
in the vertical direction. They are not present in Porphyrio; 
and what their special function is in life is difficult to conjecture. 
(Specimen No. 19710, collection United States National Museum 
bird skeletons.) 
The hyoid bones (Plate I, fig. 4) are extremely slender and 
elongate, and the glossohyal remains in cartilage throughout 
life, while the very minute urohyal is prolonged by a short, 
threadlike extension. This part of the skeleton of the coot at 
hand has been lost, so no comparisons can be made. It is fair 
to presume, however, that the skeletal parts of the tongue in 
these two birds are very similar. 
The trunk skeleton. — There are thirteen vertebraa in the 
cervical division of the spinal column of Porphyrio wherein the 
pleurapophyses are not free; in the fourteenth they are small, 
and are found to articulate freely with the vertebra, while in the 
fifteenth each rib of the pair is long and as slender as a needle. 
They do not reach the sternum, nor are epipleural appendages 
present upon them. The fourteenth vertebra has some of the 
characters of a leading dorsal, and these are still more pro- 
nounced in the fifteenth vertebra (Plate III, fig. 11). 
The cervical vertebrae in Fulica are far more delicately fash- 
ioned than they are in the big gallinule of the Philippines. 
Proportionately, they are more elongate, with the pleurapophyses 
of the fourth to the eighth, inclusive, needlelike and long; in 
Porphyrio, relatively as well as actually, they are shorter and 
blunter. Only the second, third, and fourth have low, blunt, 
neural spines upon them, while in the fourteenth and fifteenth 
these processes are conspicuous and resemble the dorsal neural 
spines, only they are not so broad anteroposteriorly. Haemapo- 
physes are present on the atlas and on the next two vertebrae 
behind it ; they then disappear, to be seen again on the eleventh, 
twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth, where they are thin laminae 
of bone in the median line and transversely compressed. 
The carotid canal is open for its entire length; while the 
vertebral canal, on either side, is completely surrounded by 
bone in the third to thirteenth cervicals, inclusive. 
In both Porphyrio and Fulica the first two dorsal vertebrae 
possess haemal spines resembling those of the cervical vertebrae ; 
they are short and transversely compressed. On the other hand, 
all of the vertebrae in this division of the spinal column possess 
very large, thin, quadrilateral neural spines, which increase in 
size from first to last as we proceed in the anteroposterior direc- 
tion. Their free superior margins are slightly thickened; and 
