REPRINTED FROM 
The Journae of Comparative 
Medicine and Surgery, 
October, 1889. 
ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 
-- - 
Art. XVIII.—OSTEOLOGICAL STUDIES OF THE SUB¬ 
FAMILY ARDEIN.E. 
By R. W. Shufeldt, M.D., C.M.Z.S. 
[Part II.] 
Of the Pectoral Arch :—Comparatively speaking the coracoid of 
the Great Blue Heron, is a large bone. Its sternal extremity 
is much spread out and quite thin and plate-like. Articular sur¬ 
faces occur on both aspects of this end of the bone, for the fellow 
of the opposite side, and the sternum. One would think, and 
naturally, that these extremities of the coracoid would be quite 
unlike, from the fact that they cross each other in articulation, 
and are fitted in differently directed grooves on the sternum. Such, 
however, is not the case, for with the sole difference of a slight 
asymmetry of the articular facets, these bones are no more unlike 
than we find them in the majority of birds. 
The shaft of a coracoid is slender and somewhat laterally 
compressed, a compression that is extended to the head of the 
bone, where it becomes decidedly marked. The summit of the 
bone being capped with a tuberous crown which curls over mesiad, 
and extends backwards to merge into the glenoid cavity. This 
