114 Suvv^LD J, Material for a Study of the Megapodiidce. [j^^' 



Emu 

 Oct. 



tubes are circumscribed, distinct from each other, and protected 

 by a small ledge of bone below. Other foramina for nerves and 

 vessels open at their usual sites, and do not seem to offer anything 

 demanding especial notice. 



A quadrate has a short, somewhat pointed orbital process which 

 is bent backward. The elongate body of the bone is much com- 

 pressed antero-posteriorly, and there is a deep valley between the 

 inner and outer articular facets below. 



Either pterygoid is a short bone with greatly expanded ex- 

 tremities, and, as usual, twisted upon itself. They do not 

 articulate with each other, while each makes extensive articula- 

 tion with a facet on the sphenoidal rostrum, the palatine, and 

 the quadrate of its own side, the ends of the bone being fashioned 

 to accomplish this. 



Making the usual articulations at its extremities, either infra- 

 orbital bar or zygoma is a perfectly straight and very slender rod, 

 as is so often the case in Galline fowls.* 



The palatines closely articulate with each other beneath the 

 sphenoidal rostrum, all to the posterior termination, where each 

 develops a small, rounded, distinct process, which curves back- 

 wards and outwards, to articulate with the pterygoid of its own 

 side. The postero-external angles of the palatines are notably 

 rounded off, while the rather short body of either bone is markedly 

 concaved below and correspondingly con vexed above. Anteriorly, 

 the prepalatines are drawn out as extremely slender rods of bone, 

 which, in the articulated skull, are widely separated. Opposite 

 their commencements posteriorly, where the bodies of the 

 palatines meet in a fine point, the articulation with the vomer 

 commences. This latter bone is unusually well developed in this 

 Megapode, it being a long, slender, straight rod, articulating with 

 the palatines and presphenoidal spine in the middle line in front, 

 to be carried far forwards, and ending in a sharp point opposite 

 the posterior margins of the external narial apertures or osseous 

 nostrils. Often this bone does not ossify in Gallinaceous birds, 

 and it is usually much sliorter in this group tlian it is in this 

 Megapode. t 



The maxillo- palatines are well separated in the middle line, and 

 each develops a curved hook of bone which is directed backwards. 

 On either side the slender prepalatine rests upon the under side 

 of this as it proceeds forwards to its articulation with the nasal 

 and premaxillary beyond. The anterior third of the vomer is 



* Parker, W. K., and Bettany, G. T., " The Morphology of the Skull," 

 London, 1877; tig. 72, p. 2;;4, qj-mx. Shufeldt, R. W., "Osteology of 

 Birds," N.Y. State Edu. Dept., Bull. 130, p. 219, fig. 37, /. Marshall, 

 A. Milnes, and Hurst. C. Herbert, " A Junior Course of Practical Zoology," 

 Lond., 1892, p. 397, fig. 72, qj-m. This is a very excellent drawing of the 

 skull of a Fowl, and represents the infraorbital bar slender and straight, as 

 it should be. 



f This was the case in a skull of Tctrao iirogalliis. which l^rofessor W. K. 

 Parker loaned Professor Huxley many years ago, and which he figured in his 

 " Classification of Birds " (tig. 14, Vc, p. 432). 



