236 MR. W. K. PARKER ON THE [Feb. 28, 
closing the vestibular parts of the olfactory organs, on one hand, 
and the skull, maxillary apparatus, and true olfactory region, on the 
other. Then we see that not only is the eye bounded beneath by a 
blending of the lachrymal with the postfrontal, but the latter is an- 
chylosed to the squamosal also ; and thus, with the true zygomatic 
arch below, we have three pairs of facial bridges. But the deep, 
steep-sided, beautifully arched intermaxillaries, the fair, broad fore- 
head, the well-roofed eyebrows, the perfectly bony orbit, and a man- 
dible such as the eye searches for in vain elsewhere—all these are 
outstanding characters in the highest type of Parrots, and, above all, 
in the genus Microglossa. 
The huge, mobile face is but one bone in the adult, and yet it is 
composed of a great variety of parts that have become blended into 
one thick mass, perfectly void of sutures. The nasals, intermaxil- 
laries, prevomers (the vomer is not developed in the Psittacidee), the 
nasal septum, the inferior turbinals, and the alee nasi, all these go 
to form this large compound bone. There are, therefore, six splint 
bones; and the axial bones are four for the septum, two (at least) 
for the inferior turbinals, and two for the ale nasi, thus making 
eight more, or fourteen bones in all. The highly complex skull 
also is completely fused into one bone, and it has in it the separate 
parts that form the auditory and olfactory sense-capsules. But the 
original attachment of the pieces of the arrested palato-pterygoid 
arch is loosened so as to let the ascending (proximal or orbital) pro- 
cess of the palatine lie half an inch below its proper foundation, viz. 
the pars plana or antorbital. Anteriorly, the palatine is thick and 
transversely expanded, and its convex elliptical end fits in a glenoid 
cavity in the end of the prevomer of the same side. Further back, 
at its proximal plate, it is two-thirds of an inch high, it scarcely 
becomes less than half an inch ; and its emarginate hinder end reaches 
to behind the ‘membrana tympani,” full a quarter of an inch be- 
hind the somewhat slender rod-like pterygoids. The latter bones, 
although an inch in length, are thus completely overlapped by the 
palatines. The small, late-appearing mesopterygoids have early coa- 
lesced with each other, and they have united also with the front corner 
of the basicranial edge of the left palatine. The malar bone articu- 
lates, like its axis, the palatine, with the prevomer. The epiptery- 
goid process of the pterygoid is obsolete ; the metapterygoid pro- 
cess of the quadrate bone is small, conical, and anteriorly placed, as 
in its autogenous counterpart in the non-venomous Serpents. The 
hinge-convexity of the quadrate bone is semicircular; the cupped 
process for the jugal is large and projecting; and a well-developed, 
outstanding, oval condyle is received by the cup at the end of the 
pterygoid. The heads of the os quadratum—answering to the crura of 
our anvil-bone (‘incus”)—are well developed, but do not stand as in 
other birds; for that which is related to the sympletic cartilage of 
the stapes is directly inside the outer or prootic head. In birds 
generally, this incus-head projects far backwards, overlapping the 
opisthotic, and overshadowing the auditory “ fenestra,” to articu- 
late with the exoccipital. The splints of the lower jaw, ten in 
