ulnar side (in Charadrius as well as Laridae) which have been duly described in the foregoing pages. Nor are there any salient facts, save such as are evidently associated with loss of the power of flight, which contradict such a placing.

GRUES

Definition.-Oil gland present and tufted; ' feathers with an aftershaft. Rectrices, twelve. Aquintocubital or quintocubital. Ambiens, semitendinosus, and accessory always present. Expansor secundariorum present. Cæca large. Skull schizognathous, schizorhinal, without basipterygoid processes. Two carotids.

Among the typical cranes of the family Gruidæ I include not only the nearly cosmopolitan Grus and the African Balearica, but also the South American Aramus.

There are no particular remarks to be made about the pterylosis, which NITZSCH states to be precisely like that of Psophia (see below, p. 374).

The muscular system is fairly uniform in its characters, as will be seen from the length of the above definition.

The tensores patagii of the demoiselle crane (G. virgo) are furnished with a muscular biceps slip, which is reinforced by a tendon springing from the biceps below the origin of the biceps slip. There is also the usual fibrous junction with the deltoid crest of the humerus.

From the pectoralis springs a broad flat tendinous slip, which joins the undivided tensor patagii. The tensor brevis divides at once into two thin broad diffuse tendons, of which the anterior sends forward a wristward slip, from whose junction with extensor metacarpi a slight patagial fan proceeds to the longus tendon.

In Grus leucogeranos the tensor brevis tendon widens out shortly after crossing biceps slip into a wide diffuse band, composed of many strands, but not distinctly separable into two or three tendons. There is a patagial fan.

Except in Mesites, Cariama, and Rhinochetus.

2 Rhinochetus, Cariama, Psophia.

3 Not in Eurypyga.

The pectoralis I. is usually stated to be single. It appeared to me to be distinctly double in Grus carunculatus and in Balearica pavonina, especially in the latter.

Aramus scolopaceus has the same thin diffused tendons; but they are distinctly divided below into a main tendon and a wristward slip. There is no patagial fan.

The anconaus has generally, if not always, a well-marked broad humeral slip.

The typical formula of the leg muscles for the cranes is ABXY+. This is the case with all the members of the genus Grus, excepting G. leucogeranos, where I could find neither A nor B. In Aramus and Balearica pavonina the formula is BXY+, and in B. regulorum, as in G. leucogeranos, XY+ only. In G. americana the femoro-caudal is minute and has but a feeble accessory.

The deep flexor tendons are united by a strong vinculum. Both peroneals appear to be present; but the only notes at my disposal on this matter refer to G. leucogeranos.

The left lobe of the liver is much smaller in B. pavonina, a little smaller in G. antigone and G. virgo. The proportions are reversed in Aramus.

The gall bladder is present; there is a good gizzard; the proventriculus is zonary. The following are intestinal mea

The intestinal coils in the crane tribe are very characteristic and quite unlike those of any other birds except the rails and bustards. The figure of Cariama shows the characters of the Grues generally and may be compared with that of Crex on p. 323.

The genus Grus has the most typical syrinx. In G. leucogeranos the first bronchial semi-rings are firmly attached to

each other, and the first two are ossified and somewhat arched. To the first of these are inserted on each side the two flat, rather broad intrinsic muscles, which run side by side, and which appear to be continued by fibrous tissue on to the second semi-ring. There is a normal pessulus. The membrana tympaniformis gets narrower from above downwards (having, therefore, a triangular form), and finally ends opposite the thirteenth semi-ring; but the rings remain semi-rings after this point, though their ends are very closely approximated, until close to their opening into the lung. G. australasiana shows no special differences. In G. canadensis the two muscles, though distinct above, appear to fuse below; they do not quite reach the bronchial semi-ring as muscle, but are attached to it by a short ligamentous ending. Grus carunculata agrees with the last.

A peculiarity found in many cranes is the convoluted trachea.1 This state of affairs is not found in Balearica or

Aramus.

In both males and females of the following species the trachea is convoluted: G. cinerea, G. antigone, G. carunculata, and G. leucogeranos. The males of G. australasiana and G. canadensis are known to be the same, and the female of G. americana. In the female of G. leucogeranos and in the male of G. carunculata the trachea, though convoluted more or less, does not enter the substance of the sternum, as it does in the others. This too holds good for Tetrapteryx and Anthropoides.

The trachea has the usual pair of extrinsic muscles, which in Balearica pavonina arise not from the costal processes, as is the rule, but from the angle of the first rib.

I have myself examined syringes of the following species: Grus canadensis, G. australasiana, G. leucogeranos, G. carunculata, Balearica pavonina, and B. regulorum.

The syrinx of Balearica is rather different and less typical.

The two intrinsic muscles are present, but they end in a

See A Natural History of the Cranes,' by W. B. TEGETMEIER, and FORBES, P. Z. S. 1882, p. 353.

fibrous band fourteen rings above the end of the trachea. The first tracheal ring is not so strongly modified as in Grus.

B. pavonina hardly differs.

There are nineteen cervical vertebræ in G. carunculata, twenty in Balearica.

Seven ribs reach the sternum in both. The clavicles in the former and in Tetrapteryx are ankylosed with the sternum, but not in Balearica. Some of the dorsal vertebræ are partly ankylosed.

The skull has occipital fontanelles, as in most charadriiform birds. This holds good also of the slightly aberrant Aramus. The impressions for the supra-orbital glands are slight, and largely concealed when viewed from above. The lacrymal bones do not blend with the ectethmoid. The interorbital septum is much fenestrated, but not so much so as in the rails. In Tetrapteryx and Balearica the palatine bones do not appear to come into contact posteriorly, and at any rate the inner lamina is continued right to the end of the bone. This is not the case with Grus, where the bones do come into contact posteriorly and the inner laminæ are not continued to the end.

The pelvis of the typical cranes (Grus, Balearica, Tetrapteryx) hardly differs from that of such a rail as Aramides.

2

An outlying member of this group is usually included in the family Rhinochetidæ. This family is represented by but a single species, the kagu (Rhinochetus jubatus), of New Caledonia. The bird is not unlike a heron in appearance; but BARTLETT, who made a careful study of the habits of specimens at the Zoological Society's Gardens, compared its quick active movements rather with those of a crane than with the slow motions of a heron. The anatomy of the bird has been chiefly studied by PARKER (osteology),3

1 So too apparently in Anthropoides stanleyanus (PARKER, Tr. Z. S. x. pl. liv. fig. 6).

2 P. Z. S. 1862, p. 218.

3. On the Osteology of the Kagu,' Zool. Trans. vi. p. 501.

BB

MURIE (dermal and visceral structures '), and myself (syrinx and muscular anatomy).2 Others, however, particularly FÜRBRINGER and GARROD, have contributed details of importance to our knowledge of this bird.

The powder-down patches, which were originally discovered by BARTLETT,. exist as scattered groups of feathers of the kind; there are not the regular patches found in the

FIG. 178.-CERTAIN LEG MUSCLES OF Rhinochetus (AFTER BEDDARD).
St, semitendinosus; A, its accessory; Sm, semimembranosus.

near ally of Rhinochetus, Mesites. The oil gland is present but nude. The feathers have an aftershaft. There are twelve rectrices. The pterylosis, imperfectly described by

p.

6

"Contributions to the Anatomy of the Kagu,' P. Z. S. 1891, p. 9. See also W. MARSHALL, Quelques Observations sur la Splanchnologie de Rhinochetus jubatus,' Arch. Néerl. 1870, p. 402.