168 Prof. E/cinliardt's Remarks on the Genus Balseniceps. 



It has been already remarked by Mr. Parker that there is no 

 harmony between Balaniceps and the Herons in regard to the 

 bones of the palate, and that in this respect it rather resembles 

 the Adjutant and Pelicans, particularly the latter, inasmuch 

 as these bones anchylose posteriorly, and along the line of an- 

 chylosis there stands out a prominent crest just as in Balaniceps. 

 A nearer comparison, however, shows that the resemblance to the 

 Pelicans extends to these two points only, and that the palatal 

 bones of the latter serve as a support to the inter-orbital septum 

 {os ethmoideum) for a very short way only, and that for the rest, 

 compressed into an extremely sharp keel, they extend underneath 

 as far as, but at a considerable distance from, the septum, which 

 also terminates in a sharp edge. In Balaniceps, on the con- 

 trai-y, the highly anchylosed palatal bones are hollowed out just 

 above into a deep channel, which receives the lower rounded 

 and thick margin of the inter-orbital septum, and slides back- 

 wards and forwards on it. But this development of the palatal 

 bones is also exactly characteristic of the Storks in general, of 

 Anastomus, and of Scopus, and in the latter they are found an- 

 chylosed posteriorly just as in Balaniceps. 



The inter-articular bones {ossa pterygoided) are not exactly 

 those in the structure of which substantial grounds for making 

 Balamiceps rather a Stork than a Heron can be expected to be 

 found ; still their short powerful form does more towards ranking 

 it with the former than the latter group. And, lastly, in regard to 

 the tympanic bone, which most decidedly, together with certain 

 similarities to, also presents differences from, that of Scopus, we 

 remark that these differences do not bring it any nearer the same 

 bone in the Herons. This distinction is especially shown in the 

 peculiar form of the articulating surfaces of the lower jaw, which 

 are found to be in front of and inside the setting-on of the ptery- 

 goids. In Balaniceps the articulation is effected by two condyles 

 of unequal size and height, to which corresponds a socket on the 

 lower jaw, in form of two channels separated by an intervening 

 ridge, so sharply defined and so closely embracing the articu- 

 lating surface of the tympanic bone, that, in contemplating the 

 dried skull, one is at some pains to comprehend how it can ad- 

 mit of the requisite mobility. Just as little in Scopus and other 



