24 R. W. SHUFELDT, 
end. It is short in Erismatura, and the process described in the 
Mallard is here found to be a separate and free ossification of no 
great size. In Branta ce. hutchensi, the process is a fine, sharp spine, 
situated on the inner margin of a palatine, at some distance posterior 
to the maxillo-palatine of the same side. 
In Oidemia perspicillata, the palatine has an entirely different 
form; the proximal end is expanded, and when duly articulated, its 
surface about two-thirds faces the corresponding surface of the 
fellow of the opposite side. The distal flattened end of either of 
these bones is in the horizontal plane, and underlies the enormously 
swollen maxillo-palatine. The minute process described above is 
on the outer border of the bone, extremely fine and sharp, and 
directed backwards instead of directly forwards, as in the other 
ducks mentioned above. 
In fact, this Surf Scoter has a remarkable skull, and in it the 
vomer is quite different from that bone as it occurs in ordinary 
ducks; for, while it is a thin, laterally compressed bone, it is small 
at its palatine articulation posteriorly, and gradually increases in 
depth as it proceeds forwards, where it terminates in a conspicuous 
spine above, though, in this anterior situation, it in no way comes. 
in contact with the other osseous structures in front of it. 
Charitonetta albeola has the anterior palatine process on 
the mesial side of the bone standing out very distinctly, and not in 
contact with the maxillo-palatine. It is absent in A:x, or barely 
indicated in Aöx galericulata. This is the case in Harelda, where 
the palatine is short, and its anterior third deflected outward. 
Olor likewise has a straight, flat palatine, with much of a form 
as we meet with in Dendrocygna; indeed, in the case of Olor colum- 
bianus, the general morphology of the bones, seen upon the inferior 
aspect of the cranium, agree with the corresponding ones in the 
skull of Dendrocygna, in most all their characters (Compare Figs. 53, 
54 of Pl. 8 and the skull of the Swan shown in Fig. 41, Pl. 7). 
This agreement is not as close, however, as it is with Anas platy- 
rhynchos, especially in the matter of the large elliptical foramen in 
the roof of the mouth, which is sometimes almost filled in with bone 
in Oygnus olor, and the rounded off posterior external angles of the 
palatines in the Cygninae, where a well-defined apophysis is 
developed both in the “Tree-Ducks” and in the Mallard. 
Attention is called, however, to the near approach of the back- 
ward-extending lower end of the lacrymal, and to the apex of the long 
