ON THE SYSTEMATIC POSITION OF HESPERORNIS. 3 
THE SKULL. 
The skull, says Professor Marsu (p. 6), “has a general resemblance to the 
skull of Colymbus torquatus, Briinnich; . . . but the likeness soon ceases, for the 
type of cranial structure is essentially different in the two genera. In its more 
important characters the skull of Hesperornis resembles that of the Ratite, or 
Struthious birds. . . . The base of the skull shows nearly all the cranial characters 
which Huxtey, in his invaluable Memoir on the Classification of Birds, lays down 
to distinguish the Ratitee, viz. :— 
(1) The posterior ends of the palatines, and the anterior ends of the 
pterygoids, are very imperfectly, or not at all, articulated with the 
basi-sphenoid rostrum. 
(2) Strong ‘ basi-pterygoid’ processes, arising from the body of the basi- 
sphenoid, and not from the rostrum, articulate with facets which 
are situated nearer the posterior than the anterior ends of the 
inner edges of the pterygoid bones. 
(3) The upper, or proximal, articular head of the quadrate bone is not 
divided into two distinct facets.” 
Now in regard to the first point, it is very remarkable that we are here face to 
face with a character in which the Grebes and Divers are exceptional too. In well- 
prepared skulls in our museum we find that in the Diver the posterior ends of the 
palatines articulate very little with the rostrum, and the anterior ends of the ptery- 
goids scarcely, if at all. And in the Grebe the same extremities of the two bones 
meet their fellows of the other side below, and the rostrum plays freely in the 
groove formed by their upper surface. It is on this account that basipterygoid 
processes are, as is well known, entirely absent. But there is not in this any real 
relation with Ratite characters: and, moreover, we must note that Marsy has 
omitted one-half of Huxtry’s sentence, which should conclude with the words 
“being usually separated from it, and supported by the broad, cleft hinder end of the 
vomer.” ‘To the general statement the Ostrich itself is an exception, being remarkable 
for ‘‘ the shortness of the vomer, which does not articulate with either palatines or 
pterygoids posteriorly.” So that the character is a very uncertain one. It is not 
definitely displayed, and is not figured at all, in Marsn’s account; and if it were, 
it would be very far from supporting his conclusion. 
In the detailed account of the bones, Mars# states that the palatine resembles 
that of the Ostrich. But the palatine is a most variable bone among the Ratite ; 
the long, slender palatine of the Ostrich has no resemblance whatever with the same 
bone, flat, broad, and foliaceous, in Rhea, the Cassowary, and the Emu; and, to my 
mind, the figure given of the palatine in Hesperornis is by no means unlike that of 
the Colymbide. 
