7 
upward, the base intervening between the coracoid (6) and costal (a) surfaces. The 
latter, occupying 1 inch 9 lines of the sternal border behind the costal process, presents 
seven articulations (Pls. I. & IL. fig. 1, a, a) for as many heemapophyses (ib. h), pro- 
gressively decreasing in size as these likewise diminish at their sternal ends, The 
sternum is continued 4 inches 5 lines behind the costal borders, slightly expanding before 
it is rounded off to the end, which is truncate, and reduced to a breadth of 9 lines. 
The front border of the sternal keel, | inch 10 lines in depth, is concave and carinate 
(PI. II. fig. 2), the obtuse anterior angle of the keel being produced toward the 
furculum (Pl. I. fig. 1, 58), but not reaching or coalescing with that bone, The 
keel extends, gradually losing depth, to within an inch of the hind end of the sternum, 
and at its subsidence a pair of curved lines (Pl. IL. fig. 1,2), convex backward, 
diverge to near the lateral borders, and are reflected forward, three or four lines from 
the border, to the end of the costal surface (a). The total length of the sternum is 
7 inches 8 lines ; its greatest breadth is 2 inches 3 lines. , 
§ 2. Skull. 
The skull is long and narrow, the rostral part forming nearly the two anterior thirds, 
compressed, and deep ; the orbits are large, with only the upper half of their bony rim 
defined. ‘The cranium is very small, and chiefly seen at the upper half of the posterior 
fifth part of the entire skull (Pl. I. fig. 2). The interorbital region slopes to the 
base of the upper mandible, which, rising at its compressed part, leayes a wide con- 
cavity in the contour line between the mandible and the cranium proper. Both the 
temporal (f) and the superorbital glandular (so) depressions are deep and sharply defined, 
meeting, but separated respectively, at the mid line by a low, sharp crest. 
There is a large lower and a small upper vacuity in the interorbital septum, the former 
continuous posteriorly with the optic vacuity, the latter with the olfactory vacuity: in 
the anterior cranial wall there is a pair of vacuities, one on each side of the orbito- 
sphenoidal base of the ossification, dividing the upper from the lower vacuity in the 
bony interorbital septum. 
The occipital tubercle is subhemispheroid, projecting below the level of the basi- 
occipital (ib. fig. 3,1), This is transversely extended, subcarinate, divided by a pair of 
transverse curved ridges from the basisphenoid (ib. 5). The paroccipitals (ib. 4) are 
broad, obtuse, trihedral, the narrowest surface being mesiad ; the fore surface is concave ; 
the outer margin is continued as a ridge upon the occipital surface, defining the share 
developed from longitudinally consecutive series of lateral elements such as represent the heemapophyses of 
certain dorsal segments in Chelonia, In most birds ossification of the sternum begins from a pair of centres, 
which, meeting and coalescing at the mid line, thence extend into the cartilaginous basis of the keel. The extra 
pair in the anomalous sternum of Gallina is special and exceptional in the Bird class. The application aE the 
names of the elements of the Chelonian plastron to parts of the Aviun sternum is to be deprecated, saye in the 
case of the episternum, the bifurcate character of which is shown by bone in Passerines. 

