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Show 1868.] PROF. HUXLEY ON THE ALECTOROMORPHAE. 303 pterygoid and the basipterygoid processes, on the other hand, are like those of the Peristeromorphce. 3. The sternum and furcula, as well as the coracoid (in its shortness, breadth, and the presence of a subclavicular process), are completely Peristeromorphic; and so is the whole fore limb. 4. The pelvis has resemblances both to that of the Grouse and that of the Pigeons, but has some peculiarities of its own. 5. The foot contrasts strongly with that of the Pigeons in the extreme brevity of the tarso-metatarsus and toes, and in the reduction of the hallux, but may be regarded as an exaggeration of that of the Grouse. According to Nitzsch, the pterylosis is Peristeromorphic; and Mr. Parker (I. c. p. 150) has shown that while the vocal organs are Pigeon-like, the digestive organs are Tetraonine. Thus the Pteroclidce are completely intermediate between the Alectoromorphce and the Peristeromorphce*. They cannot be included within either of these groups without destroying its definition, while they are perfectly definable in themselves. Hence, I think, the only advisable course is to make them into a group by themselves, of equal value with the other two, under the head of Pteroclomorphce. The Hemipodidee differ much more from the Alectoromorphce, Pteroclomorphce, and Peristeromorphce than these groups do from one another. 1. The number of the cervical, dorsal, and lumbar vertebrae is indeed the same; but that ankylosis which is so constant and so remarkable among the birds which have been already mentioned is absent. All the vertebrae are distinct from one another, as Mr. Parker has already noticed (I. c. p. 184). 2. The palatines, pterygoids, and basipterygoids are more Pluvialine, though there is a touch of the Pigeon both in these parts and in the mandible. They are very different from the corresponding bones in the Alectoromorphce and Pteroclomorphce. The broad flat vomer, however, is not Pluvialine, but is more Grouse-like. 3. The sternum appears to me to be, as nearly as may be, intermediate between that of the Pteroclomorphce and that of the Tinamorphee. If the inner notch, which is already so small in Syrrhaptes, were reduced to nothing, the sternum would differ from that of Hemipodius in very little but the breadth of its middle xiphial process. In fact, it seems to m e to be demonstrable that the long xiphial process of the sternum of Hemipodius answers to the outer of the two metosteal processes of the Alectoromorphce,-and not to the inner, as Mr. Parker supposes in his paper on the Gallinaceous birds-or to the inner and outer together, as he suggests in * M. Blanchard excludes Pterocles from the " Gallinaces," and expresses, " without the least doubt," the opinion that this genus should be ranged among the Pigeons. " La forme de leur sternum, de leur bassin, de leurs membres anterieurs, de leur humerus notamment, ne peut laisser a cet egard la moindre incertitude" (Blanchard, I. c. p. 93). M. Blanchard does not mention Hemipodius, and is uncertain about the affinities of Tinamus. |
