Page 934. 
462 ON INDICATOR MAJOR. 
As the Ramphastide have to be mentioned so frequently in con- 
nexion with the genus under consideration, it may be useful to refer 
to the vomer of this family. By Prof. Huxley it is included among 
his Coccygomorphe, in which the vomer, if present, is pointed 
anteriorly. Prof. Huxley further remarks* that in Ramphastos ‘the 
antero-internal angles of the palatines not only meet, but are united 
by bone.” But close examination demonstrates a large tabular 
truncation of the anterior extremity in the Ramphastine vomer, which 
I cannot help thinking Prof. Huxley interpreted as a median osseous 
bridge formed by the (supposed) blending of the antero-internal 
angles of the palatines. Figure 2 represents the vomer of Ramphastos 
Fig, 2. 
Palatal aspect of the truncated vemer of Ramphastos ariel, with the posterior parts 
of the palatine bones retained in union with it. 
ariel, freed from its surroundings. It does not send forward limbs to 
join the maxillo-palatines [which are those of the desmognathous 
Capitonide inflated], but helps by its terminal expansion to complete, 
by contact or ankylosis with the palatine on either side, the posterior 
wall of a cavity in the dried skull, bounded laterally and superiorly 
by the inflated and infused maxillo-palatines, anteriorly by the nasal 
septum together with ossifications in the nasal cartilages associated 
with it. 
In the “Transactions” of the Linnean Societyt Prof. Parker 
describes the vomer of Ramphastos toco as double, it being composed 
of a smaller posterior and a larger anterior bone, the truncated nature 
of which I am not able to infer from the account given. 
The Capitonide, the Ramphastide, and Indicator are intimately 
associated, therefore, so far as the vomer is concerned. Nevertheless 
the proportionally great length of the limbs of the vomerine fork in 
the last-named form, and the considerable separation of its small 
maxillo-palatines, are characters which tend to bring it nearer than 
either of the others to the Picide. 
* “Proceedings of the Zoological Society,” 1867, p. 444. 
+ “ Linn. Trans.” 2nd ser. vol. i. p. 127. 
