172 GENERAL ORNITHOLOGY. 
‘ 
other cranial characters of these birds is to bested the articulation of the palate bones with 
the upper beak, like that of the zygoma. The multifarious Picarian birds, or non-passerine 
Tnsessores, are desmognathous, excepting the schizognathous trogons (Trogonide) and the 
‘‘saurognathous” woodpeckers. Parker has established the following categories of desmo- 
gnathism: (a) Perfect direct, the maxillo-palatiues uniting below at the mid-line ; either with 
the nasal septum free from such bony bridge, as ina duck; or anchylosed therewith, as in many 
birds of prey. (0) Perfect indirect, very common, as in eagles, vultures, owls; maxillo- 
palatines separated from each other by a chink, but an- 
chylosed with nasal septum. (¢) Imperfectly direct ; 
maxillo-pdlatines sutured together, but not anchylosed. 
“‘In young faleons and hawks the palate is at first in- 
direct, is then imperfectly direct, and at last perfectly 
direct.” (d) Imperfectly indirect ; maxillo-palatines 
closely articulated with, and separated by, the ‘‘ median 
septo - maxillary ;” but there is no anchylosis.  (e) 
Double: the palatines united as well as the mavxillo- 
palatines ; as in the pelican and cormorant above noted, 
in certain Caprimulgine birds, horn-bills, ete. (jf) Com- 
pound: when the properly @githognathous skull of a 
_passerine bird becomes also desmognathous. 
Mgithognathism (Gr. aiyadds, aigithalos, some 
small bird) is exhibited almost unexceptionally by the 
great group of Passerine birds ; it is also nearly coinci- 
dent with Passeres, though a few other birds, notably 
the swifts (Cypselide), also exhibit it. Huxley’s term 
Coracomorphe, uearly synonymous with Passeres, relates 
to the palatal structure exhibited by a raven (fig. 79), as 
typical of that of Passeres at large. The vomer is a 
broad bone, truncate in front and deeply cleft behind, 
embracing the sphenoidal rostrum in its forks. The 
palatines have produced postero-external angles. The 
maxillo-palatines are slender at their origin, extending 
inwards and backwards over the palatines and under the 
vomer, where they end free, bemg united neither with 
each other nor with the vomer. This disconnection of 
the maxillo-palatines is quoad hoc “‘ schizognathous,”’ of 
course; but such condition, in association with the pecu- 
liarities of the vomer, is egithognathous. The nasal 
Fic. 79. — Agithognathous skull of 
raven, Corvus corax, nat. size, from na- ; 4 ; j 
ture, by Dr. R. W. Shufeldt, U.S. A. septum in front of the vomer is often ossified in eegitho- 
Letters as before. N.B. The reference : : : 
inlet Goes to the ossified gee septum ghathism, and the interval between it and the premax- 
borne upon the end of the vomer, which jllz filled up with spongy bone; but no union takes 
Hews Pe oection aE eeMaeres - place between this ossification and the vomer (Huxley). 
and overlies P/, but touches neither. According to Parker, the distinguishing character of the 
egithognathous type is the union of the vomer with the alinasal wall and turbinals. He dis- 
tinguishes four styles: (a) Incomplete; very curiously exhibited by the low Turnia, which 
stands near the gallinaceous birds. (b, ¢) Complete, as represented under two varieties, one 
typified by the crow, an Oscine Passerine, the other by the Clamatorial Passerines Pachyrham- 
phus and Pipra. (d) Compound, i. e., mixed with a kind of desmognathism, as noted above. 
‘“‘Vomer truncated in front” is the general expression for the condition of that bone in the 
