The molar-like teeth slightly diminishing in size from the first to the fourth, with square crowns, each bearing four pyramidal cusps.
In Colymbus the patella is reduced to a small ossicle, its function being taken by the greatly developed pyramidal processus tibialis anterior; in Podiceps and Hesperornis the patella itself is large and pyramidal.
Order Colymbiformes.-Plantigrade, nidifugous, aquatic. All toes webbed, fourth largest, hallux short; metatarsus laterally compressed; tibia with high, pyramidal crest.
The peculiarity of the instrument consists in the pyramidal form given to the stem, which renders the scale-divisions more nearly equal in length than they would be on a prismatic stem.