Letters, ExtractK, Notices, i^c. 523 



iuilirution of systtniuitic affinity. Amongst Ajjoccntric 

 cliai-actcrs he clistiii<juislied between ititiJtirad'KtJ apoceii- 

 tricities (many of wliicli were plastic efieets and afforded no 

 gnide to affinity) and uiuradial apoceniriciiles (wliicli had 

 arisen by a limitation and defini ion of variability in a 

 ])articnhir branch of the family treeU 



Neiv Ecupef/ition to the Matay Peninsula. — We are in- 

 formed in 'Nature' (vol. Ixiii. p. 447^ 1901) that a small 

 zoological expedition has just started for the Malay Pen- 

 insula. It consists of Mr. N. Annandale, who was a member 

 of the '^Skeat" expedition to the Siamese Malay States in 

 1899, and Mr. N. C. Robinson, recently assistant in the 

 Zoological Department of University College, Liverpool. 

 Tlicy intend to settle for a year in the native State of Jalor, 

 near the east coast of Lower Siam, and to explore the neigh- 

 bourhood of Patani and Biseret. Collections will be made 

 in all branches of natural historv. 



The jEyithognathous Palate. — At the Linnean Society's 

 meeting on May 2nd, Mr. W. P. Pycraft, M.A., A.L.S., 

 read a paper '' Ou the Palate of the Neognathae/' in which 

 he traced the derivation of the Neognathine from the more 

 ])rimitive Struthious or Paliseoguathine palate. The Neo- 

 gnathine, he pointed out, differs from the Struthious palate in 

 that the palatines have shifted inwards to meet one another 

 in the middle line below the pterygoids, with the distal ends 

 of which they ultimately fuse. Further specialization of 

 this type results in the segmentation of the pterygoid, the 

 fusion of the segmented portion with the underlying pala- 

 tines, and the formation of a joint at the point of segmenta- 

 tion — an apparent palato-pterygoid articulation. The palates 

 of the Gain and Anseres reach the high-water mark of 

 specialization in this direction ; the hitherto more or less 

 intimately related pterygoid and vomer being completely 

 divorced, and the lattei" depending entirely upon the palatines 

 for support. 



