BY H. H. SCOTT AND CI.IVE E. LOUD. 106 



Thus it will be noted that a transversely oval foramen 

 — and, therefore, one of unequal measurement — is con- 

 verted into one whose central measurements are equal in 

 both directions. 



If a line is drawn horizontally across the vertex of 

 the skull, it will be found to be exactly five inches above 

 the upper wall of tlie magnum foramen. 



The par-oocipital processes have thickened borders, 

 are concave as they contribute moieties to the otocrane — 

 they are notched for the passage of the nervus vagii. 

 Mesiad — they are confluent with the basi-occipital, and 

 basi-sphenoidal plates of the otocrane. A ridge marks the 

 occipito-sphenoidal suture, but the spheno sphenoidal 

 suture is overlapped by the enormously extended vomer. 

 The whole of the vertex of the skull is rough and granu- 

 lated, even at times raised into bony callosities, and the 

 sutures proper to this region stand out as ossified ridges. 

 The line of the super-occinital — as viewed in profile — is 

 that of an "ogee," hollow above the magnum foramen, and 

 rounded higher up. A line vertical to the basis erani, 

 and made to touch the occipital condyles, would stand 

 away from the deepest part of the curve of the ogee, an 

 inch and three-quarters. 



The temporal fossae are largely composed of the parie- 

 tals, which are ridged above, and continued post^eriorly as 

 two wings that extend a quarter of an inch bevond the 

 line of the super- occipital. These ridges slope backward 

 and downward, finally losing themselves at the exoccipito- 

 squamosal sutures, having upon all their faces, made open 

 parabolic cui-ves. In macerated skulls these curves are 

 very symmetrical, but in old beach-worn specimens they 

 always suffer much mutilation. The pre-maxillaries ex- 

 pand over the maxillaries at their upper ends, and form 

 two hollow grooves. The maxillaries cover the whole of 

 the frontals, except a wedge-?haped strip on either side of 

 the skull, the bases of these wedges being turned towards 

 the "blowers. " In point of size, the frontal strip thus 

 exposed does not exceed one and a half inches, but may 

 vary considerablv within this limit in individual skulls. 

 When a line is drawn — mesiad — from the tin of the skull 

 beak to the vertex, the upper edsres of the maxillarv wings 

 subtend angles nf 78 degrees to it Over thf zvo-omatic 

 arches, the maxillarv wings are much thickened — in male 

 skulls of thi=! ffenus — as much so relativelv as in 

 Glnhicephahix and Orcn, but femaV skulls show verv little 

 super-ossification in this region. As far as our knowledge 

 goes, no female TurninjiR skull ever shelves here, as obtains 

 in Delphinus. It is simply a matter of less super-ossifi- 



