446 ALLIS. [Vou. XIV. 
The preorbital ossification (PRE£) is of primary origin, and 
contains, in Amia, no canal organ component. It may, how- 
ever, receive membranous additions to its dorsal surface, as 
I have already pointed out (No. I, p. 478). A strong, broad, 
fibrous band arises from its lateral surface, and is inserted on 
the superior surface of the autopalatine. This band holds the 
palato-quadrate arch up against an articular ridge on the ventro- 
lateral edge of the chondrocranium, immediately ventral to the 
preorbital ossification. The ossification itself takes no direct 
part in the articulation of the palato-quadrate with the cranium. 
It gives attachment, on its postero-inferior surface, to the third 
division and part of the fourth division of the levator maxillae 
superioris muscle. 
A wholly separate, and entirely dermal, prefrontal bone is 
described in Amia by Bridge (No. 7, p. 615), but I have been 
wholly unable to find it. I also find no such bone described, 
as such, in any other fish excepting Clarias. In the latter fish 
Pollard says (No. 31, p. 527) there is a dermal prefrontal, lying 
between the nasal and frontal bones, and that it is traversed by 
the main supraorbital lateral canal. This course of the canal is 
confirmed by Collinge (No. 12, p. 275), who calls the bone it 
traverses the lateral ethmoid. It contains, according to Pollard, 
no sense organ of the canal line by which it is traversed, and 
hence cannot be developed in the same direct connection with 
the line that the frontal and nasal bones are. What its repre- 
sentative in Amia and other fishes may be is in no way evident. 
The septomaxillary (SJZX) is a primary ossification of the 
chondrocranium lying ventral to the anterior end of the nasal 
sac, and forming the antero-lateral part of the floor of the nasal 
pit: (No.,7, p: 615; No. 3, Figs. 8,10). It is said by Bridge 
to be an ossification peculiar to Amia amongst ganoids, and 
the name septomaxillary was given to it by him because of 
its supposed homology with a bone described by Parker in the 
nasal capsule of the frog, and called by Parker in that animal 
that the postfrontal is found, in man and mammals, either as a separate bone 
lying between the frontal process of the malar and the external angular process of 
the frontal, or fused with one or the other of those bones, it would seem much 
more natural to look for the postorbitals in the malar bone than in any connection 
with the wing of the sphenoid. 
