244 GENERAL ORNITHOLOGY part ii 



large size, and pronged, — one fork, the superior ])rocess, being applied 

 for a variable distance along the outer side of the frontal process of 

 the premaxillary, the other, inferior, descending to or towards the 

 dentary border of the maxillary or premaxillary, or both ; the 

 divergence of these two processes bounding the nostril behind. The 

 base of the nasal, uppermost and posterior, ankyloses (usually) or 

 sutures (often) or articulates (as in parrots) with the antero-external 

 border of the frontal bone ; its frequent collateral connections being 

 with the lacrymal or ethmoid, or both of these. The nasals are 

 very variable in shape, as well as in the extent of their connections. 

 When expansive, they may wall in much of the nasal cavity, as 

 well as bound the nostrils. These latter openings, as far as their 

 bony boundaries are concerned, are usually much more extensive 

 than they seem to be from the outside, being greatly contracted by 

 membrane and integument. Ordinarily, each forms a large vacuity, 

 which the descending prong of the nasal bone separates from a 

 similar vacancy between itself and the lacrymal, the lacrymal in turn 

 interposing between this and the orbital cavity. The descending 

 process of the nasal, in fact, is a marked object at the side of the 

 base of the upper mandible of most birds, though slight or rudi- 

 mentary in the Ratitse. A character of the nasals has been 

 employed in classification by Mr. Garrod. A bird having the 

 bones as above generally described, with moderate forking, so that 

 the angle of the fork, bounding the nostrils behind, does not reach 

 so far back as the fronto-premaxillary suture, is termed holoi'hinal 

 (Gr. -oAos, holos, whole; pis, pivos, rhis, rhinos, nose; Fig. 62). But 

 in the Columhidce, and in a great many wading and swimming 

 birds, Avhose palates are cleft {schkognathous), the nasal bones are 

 schizorhinal (crxiC^, schizo, I cut) ; that is, cleft to or beyond the 

 ends of the premaxillaries ; such fission leaving the external de- 

 scending process very distinct from the other, almost like a separate 

 bone. Pigeons, gulls, plovers, cranes, auks, and other birds are 

 thus split-nosed. The value of the character, except as an auxiliary, 

 is doubtful. 



The Lacrymal (Lat. lacryma, a tear ; from the relation of the 

 human bone to the tear-duct; Figs. 62, 63, u, 71, I) is one of 

 several splint-like membrane-bones of the skull, having little inti- 

 macy of relation with the general morphology of the cranium, 

 though quite constant in birds, and often very conspicuous. It is 

 situated at or near the anterior outer corner of the orbit, near the 

 nasal but behind that bone ; sometimes ankylosed, sometimes very 

 loosely attached, oftener firmly sutured with the frontal ; and may 

 also have connection with the nasal and ethmoid. It is generally a 

 claw-like affair, depending from the front outer corner of the frontal, 

 , and consequently bounding the orbit anteriorly ; it may be variously 



