By) 
This process is a broad transversely arched plate, where it joins 
the maxillary processes to form the anterior or rostral part of the 
premaxillary ; the extent of which, anterior to the external nostrils, 
is 24 inches, the whole length of the premaxillary being 41 inches. 
Its breadth at the middle is rather more than an inch ; the depth of 
the upper bony beak gradually decreases from its base where it is 
1 inch 9 lines, to its apex where it is less than 1 line, but retains 
a breadth of 8 lines, the edge appearing to have been truncate or 
very slightly rounded off: the whole upper beak being gently arched 
to this terminal edge resembles the cooper’s adze (doloire, Fr.). 
The palatal surface is broad, very slightly excavated, and bounded 
laterally by well-defined alveolar ridges: the palatal nostril com- 
mences anteriorly 1 inch 10 lines from the anterior border of the 
premaxillary. In Didus the nasal process of the premaxillary pre- 
sents an elliptic transverse section where it quits the maxillary pro- 
cesses, and diminishes in depth as it retrogrades, becoming depressed 
and broad where it rests upon and divides the nasals to anchylose 
with the frontal. Where the nasal and maxillary processes diverge, 
there is adeep groove externally terminating in a canal directed 
forwards into the rostral part or body of the premaxillary ; this part 
is subincurved, pointed, rough and with irregular vascular perfora- 
tions, with a sharp inferior border on each side, and a more concave 
palatal surface than in Dinornis. The long and slender palatines 
of Dinornis coalesce behind with the vomer and in front with the 
maxillaries ; they are concave below, particularly at their back part, 
by the downward extension there of their inner border. In Didus 
the palatines arch outwards from their posterior attachments, are 
broad and smooth mesially with a sharp crenate edge above ; a thin, 
outwardly smooth, convex ridge is directed outwards and downwards, 
and a more angular ridge is directed downwards with an obtuse apex: 
a groove divides this from the outer ridge: the upper and outer 
ridge extends to the maxillary; the lower ridge subsides before it 
reaches the maxillary. The palatines form the boundaries of the 
naso-palatine aperture, and approximate each other at both their 
ends, but do not meet. There is a fossa at the outer and near the 
back part of each palatine, where there is a rough concavity ; the 
rest of the outer surface is convex lengthwise, concave vertically. 
The boundaries of the maxillary are more readily traceable in Didus 
than in Dinornis ; but they have coalesced in both, with the pala- 
tine, malar and lachrymal behind, and with the maxillary process 
of the premaxillary in front: the maxillary in Didus forms a com- 
pressed longitudinal plate of bone with thick rounded borders above 
and below, and almost touches its fellow, leaving a deep narrow chink 
between the nasal fossa above and the palate below, closed by the 
palatal membrane. 
The tympanic bone of the Dinornis has more a triangular than a 
quadrate form by reason of the unusually large size of its inferior 
condyle, which forms its base: the orbital process is a compressed 
subrhomboidal plate : the lower condyle is not so extended inferiorly 
in the Bustard (Otis) ; its upper condyle is bifid, as in Dinornis. In 
