552

44

columbaceous ; it is produced a short way behind the articulation, and is vertically
truncate, without loss of depth. It agrees in this respect with Didunculus.

There is nothing extraordinary in the conformation of the pelvis of Pezophaps. The
acetabulum is situated in the anterior half, as in Didus (Pl.I.). The ischium (Pl. IV, 63).
coalesces with the ilium (62) at two points, circumscribing a moderate subelliptic "fora
men ischiadicum," as in Didus. The pubis (64) does not send upwards a process to
meet the downward one from the ischium, and so define the "tendinal" from the "ob-
turator" interspace.

The pelvis in the male skeleton shows the whole extent of the entire lower border of
the ischium ; and its slender hinder termination is produced into contact with the
pubis (64), from which bone a rough low tuberosity rises to form the syndesmosis with
the ischium (63). On the left side the extremity of the ischium is broken off ; but the
syndesmotic process of the pubis testifies to an original union like that on the right
side.

Here, therefore, we have an acceptable proof of an osteological correspondence with
existing doves, which the imperfect examples of the pelvis previously acquired did not
exhibit.

The scapula of Pezophaps repeats, in a minor degree, the angular beginning of the
hinder thin border above the elongate neck of the bone, but projects less as a process
than in Didus 1 ; the distal or free end expands as in Didus. The straightness of the
bone is more marked than in Didus.

The metacarpus of the male (Pl. IV. fig. 1,11.) repeats the tuberous process figured
by Prof. Newton in pl. xix. figs. 87-90 of his richly illustrated memoir 2, and testifies, as
he shows, to the value of Leguat's record, and to the accuracy of that original observer
of the living bird.

If a single specimen of a metacarpal bone of some unknown animal, such as is figured
in Pl. IV., 11, had previously come to the hands of a palaeontologist, he would have
concluded the bony tumour to have been of morbid nature and origin, and set it down as
an exceptional pathological phenomenon. Any other opinion (above all, one holding
such tumour to be a constant structure, functional in the healthy individual, and of
moment in guiding to a knowledge of the species or sex) would have hazarded the
estimate of such palaeontologist's standing in his science.

In the rich collection of bones of Pezophaps, the subject of Prof. Newton's instruc-
tive paper (tom. cit.) were not fewer than thirty-two specimens of the metacarpus.
"That it would be very short was a safe inference from what we know of it in other
flightless birds ; but it could hardly have been expected to obtain from it such a
singular confirmation of Leguat's statement regarding a remarkable peculiarity in the
'Solitaire' as observed by him, nor that it should furnish an explanation of the

1 'Memoir on the Dodo', pl. viii. figs, 6, 9, 51. 2 Phil. Trans. 1869.