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of Ardea, and is far removed from that of Botaurus. The tibia is big and short; it surpasses in length the tarso-metatarsus by about a third, as is usual in the Herons; but the femur on the contrary is strongly developed, being quite as large as in the Ardea cinerea; which shows us that the body of this creature was of large size, and that the reduction in size of the feet had only taken place at their extremities.
The sternum is puny and small as compared with the creature's size. It is clearly that of a bird not furnished with powerful wings, and is even much less elongated than in the Bittern, but the coracoidal bones are very long and slender. The wings also were short and feeble, the humerus being hardly as big as in Butorides atricapilla. It is conspicuously slenderer and shorter than in the Bittern. The main body of the bone is slightly curved on the outside, and the lower articular condyle is large and flattened. I have not been able to examine any bone of the "manus," but the metacarpal bone shows exactly the same proportions for the wing as does the humerus, as it also barely reaches the size of that of Butorides atricapilla. The measurements are as follows:—
| Skull. | ||
| Total length | 154 | mm. |
| Length of upper mandible | 94 | " |
| Width of upper mandible at base | 22 | " |
| Width of interorbital region | 22 | " |
| Space between the mastoid apophyses | 40 | " |
| Width of skull at level of postorbital apophyses | 40 | " |
| Length of lower mandible | 147 | " |
| Tarso-metatarsus. | ||
| Total length | 95-162 | mm. |
| Width at proximal extremity | 14 | " |
| Width at distal extremity | 13.5-14 | " |
| Width of shaft | 6.2-7 | " |
| Tibio-tarsus. | ||
| Total length | 140-210 | mm. |
| Width at distal extremity | 12-13 | " |
| Width at proximal extremity | 13-14 | " |
| Width of shaft | 6-6.5 | " |
