Osteologiccd Studies oj the Subfamly Ardeincz. 
7 
emanates. The foramina from which they issue, on either side, are 
double, being placed one above another. This obtains also in at 
least four of the vertebrae beyond these and one other behind, 
making eight in all whose sides are pierced by these double 
foramina. 
Apophysial abutments are 
again thrown out to anchylose 
with the pelvic bones above 
them, b} the thirty-second to 
the thirty-seventh vertebrae in¬ 
clusive. The longest pair of 
these came from the thirty- 
second vertebra, and thereafter 
grow gradually shorter as we go 
backwards. 
The ‘ brim of the pelvic 
basin’ is continuous with the 
f 
processes of the thirty-sixth 
vertebra posteriorly, while an¬ 
teriorly, it merges with the pos¬ 
terior border of the transverse 
processes of the twenty-eighth. 
This boundary has a rounded 
and well-defined border in the 
Great Blue Heron, and is more 
or less determinable in the ma¬ 
jority of birds. When viewed 
from above, this bone presents 
a strikingly smooth and un¬ 
broken superficies — it is scarce¬ 
ly marked by either crests or 
ridges, and in my specimen only 
two pair of inter-apophysial fo¬ 
ramina are seen, these being Fig. 13. — Superior view of the pelvis of 
, , 1 , , ,1 Ardea lierodias. Life siz t from the same 
between the last two vertebrae. specimen as ill former figures. 
Anteriorly, in the median 
line, the neural spine of the twenty-fourth vertebra is observed to 
project as a tuberous and notched process. 
For some little distance back of this the ilia meet on either 
side of this common neural crest, sealing over the ilio neural 
