EDITORIAL GLEANINGS.
At the meeting of the Zoological Society held on Feb. 15th, Mr. W.P. Pycraft read the first of a series of contributions to the Osteology of Birds. The present part (of which the following is an abstract) related to the Steganopodes:—
"The fact that in the Tropic-birds, Cormorants, Gannets, and Frigatebirds all the toes are united by a common web, has led to the belief that these forms are closely related; they form the suborder Steganopodes or Totipalmatæ of authors. A comparison of the osteology of the group confirms this opinion. Phalacrocorax may be taken as the type of the suborder, which may be divided into three sections according to the form of the basitemporal plate. In Phalacrocorax and Plotus this is seen in its most generalised form, and agrees with that of the Ciconiæ. Sula is the nearest ally of the Cormorants, as is shown by the close resemblance in the form of the fused palatines, and of the pectoral and pelvic girdles aud limbs. Sula, it is evident by the form of the basitemporal plate, leads to Fregata. The Pelicans resemble the Cormorants and Gannets in the form of the palatines—which are, however, more highly modified than in these families—as also of the sternum, lachrymal, and nasal hinge. Phaëthon is the most aberrant of the group, but agrees most nearly with the Pelicans in the form of the basitemporal plate, which differs from that of the preceding families. Its sternum, though distinctly Steganopodous, differs in that the free end of the clavicle does not articulate with the coracoid by a flattened facet. Phalacrocorax, it is contended, must be regarded as the typical Steganopod. Sula and Fregata fall into places on the one side, Pelecanus and Phaëthon on the other side of this family. Phaëthon and Fregata represent the two extremes of the suborder; they alone retain the vomer, and in them the modification of the palatines and of the maxillopalatine processes is comparatively slight."
The Annual Report, 1896–7, of the Director of the Field Columbian Museum, Chicago, has reached this country. We read that very much work—essential to a museum—has been done in identification, inventorying, cataloguing, and labelling; work that, as the Director remarks, "is uninteresting, plodding, and tiresome, with nothing that appeals to the
