| OCR Text |
Show 498 ON THE FLEXOR MUSCLES IN BIRDS. [June 19, Now this Parrot and the Heron, though belonging to widely separated groups of birds, are alike in that they each belong to groups which Garrod unhesitatingly placed among the Homalo-gonatce, although he knew that in their cases the ambiens was absent. In other genera of Parrots the ambiens is present; in the Storks, those near allies of the Herons, the ambiens, as Garrod showed, is absent in two cases, present in most. The existence of this possible rudiment in Eclectus and Nycticorax is therefore not surprising when the affinities of the birds are considered; and if it be found in other specimens, and still more in the case of those other members of Garrod's group that have no ambiens, the case for the ambiens as a character of great importance in classification will be confirmed. Dissection of the right leg of Eclectics roratus, seen from the outer side. Lettering as in fig. 1. In Corvus capellanus, which is of course a Passerine and therefore one of Garrod's Anomalogonatce, the three perforated flexor tendons arise by a single head, in common with one head of the longus hallucis which corresponds with the inner head mentioned in this paper. In Bubo maximus there are representatives of the inner and outer heads for each perforated flexor, but there is no ambiens nor representative of a rudimentary ambiens, so that with regard to this point the O w l is intermediate betwTeen birds with a reduced ambiens and birds with no ambiens. I hope to have further opportunity of pursuing the points mentioned in this note, but I bring it forward now in the hope that other observers into whose hands may come any of the few members of the Homalogonatce without an ambiens may look for the vestige which I have described. |
