IS 
I. On the Form of the Quadrate Bone in Birds. 
By Mary L. Watxer, University College, Dundee. 
Few descriptions and still fewer figures are extant to show the forms that the 
quadrate bone assumes in the various groups of Birds. Hux Ey, in his great paper 
on the Classification of Birds,* rarely alludes to the quadrate, save in one or two 
exceptional cases, such as the Ratitz and the Parrots. Parksr, Owen, and 
Branpt have described the bone carefully in certain particular cases; but no 
comparative study seems to have been made of it, nor any connected attempt made 
to use it for purposes of classification. In putting up a set of Birds’ skulls for the 
Museum, and in arranging them to illustrate the Huxleyan classification, I was 
instructed to prepare also a special set of quadrate bones, and to observe how far an 
arrangement of these, based on their own special characters, would coincide with the 
order founded on the general character of the whole palate. It was at once plain 
that the quadrates differed extremely among themselves, and could all, after a little 
practice on our part, be easily recognised. We then examined one or two doubtful 
forms, to see whether the quadrate was likely to help in the matter of classification ; 
and found, for example, that the quadrates of a Goose and a Heron were altogether 
different, while that of a Flamingo showed the closest possible likeness to the 
latter. We then proceeded forthwith to a systematic survey. 
The following paper is a sketch merely, our Museum not yet containing 
material enough for a long series, nor possessing more than a very few of the rarer 
and more interesting forms. I hope to take up some of these in a future paper. 
Nor does this paper profess to deal with the development or the morphology of the 
Bird’s quadrate, though certain points connected therewith seem to require further 
study. A short, and indeed preliminary, study of its configuration is all that is 
attempted here. 
In a well-marked quadrate, for example that of a Vulture, we observe the following 
parts :—The head, by which the bone articulates with the temporal region of the skull, 
NEOPHRON PERCNOPTERUS. 
*P.Z.8., 1867. 
