244 Annals of the Carnegie Museum. 



hinder portion, so that, although the pahitine ends of the pterygoids 

 extensively articulate with each other, they are at the same time ap- 

 plied against the sides of the rostrum. In front it runs out as a spine, 

 and the ethmoidal mass has nearly a straight anterior margin (or at 

 the best but little concaved), which at the same time is nearly vertical. 

 The pterygoid is short and curved, with its convex sharp edge presented 

 outwardly, when articulated. These bones make the usual articula- 

 tion with the quadrates. One of these last is a comparatively large 

 bone for the size of the bird. Its broad orbital process has its free 

 end truncate ; its mastoidal end presents the double articulatory facet, 

 with a feeble division drawn between them • and, as for its mandibular 

 articulation, it is peculiar from the fact that it appears to have but 

 one general elongated transverse facet, with an extremely shallow and 

 faint antero-posterior line at all dividing it into two. Otherwise, the 

 bone has the usual ornithic form, with the body somewhat compressed 

 from before, backwards. The short pa/atines are extremely broad and 

 are separated mesially, but by a very narrow slit. Through this latter 

 the long, spine-like vomer is seen, that anchyloses with them pos- 

 teriorly. Upon their under sides the palatines are flat and smooth. 

 Behind, they meet the pterygoids, and in this part of their extent they 

 are considerably swollen, with their outer angles completely rounded 

 off. In front they are indistinguishably fused with the usual bones 

 of the face and palate that they meet. 



All the ordinary palatal laminte and processes are much subordinated 

 and inconspicuous ; the main object of these bones here seeming to be 

 to furnish a broad, osseous roof to the fore part of the mouth, and this 

 they most emphatically accomplish. Either ear entrance is pretty 

 well surrounded by bony walls, while the apertures to the Eustachian 

 tubes, in front, are more or less exposed. The usual nervous and 

 arterial foramina are found occupying their more common sites, at the 

 skull's base, in this Roseate Spoonbill. Beyond the abrupt anterior 

 termination of the palatines, the under side of the superior mandible 

 is flat and rather smooth, being unpierced in any part of its extent 

 by vacuities of any kind. There is a line-hke median, longitudinal 

 furrow, best marked posteriorly. There is a peculiar emargination to 

 the spatulate end of this bone on its aspect now being considered. It 

 is narrow where the mandible is narrow, and broad where it is broad. 

 Anteriorly, it runs out before coming to the middle point upon either 

 side, and is marked for its entire extent by a system of very delicate 



