1865. ] OSTEOLOGY OF MICROGLOSSA: 237 
number, have all become one piece, as unlike as possible to the 
simple Meckelian rod on which they were modelled. The sym- 
physis is an inch in extent, and the bone is transversely flattened 
below, so as to be an inch wide at what should be the intermandi- 
bular angle; this is, there, a gently concave transverse margin 
having a rounded edge. The greatest height of the mandible is 
1z inch; the angular process passes further back than the exocci- 
pital. The occipital condyle is an extremely neat hemisphere. The 
scooped occipital plane forms a very obtuse angle with the basis 
cranii, which latter region is very small, triangular, and protected by 
sharp ridges that meet at the fore angle of the coalesced basitem- 
porals, below the small, closely placed Eustachian Openings. At first 
the “rostrum” of the basisphenoid is sharply carinate, then it 
becomes thick, rounded, and covered with articular cartilage, under 
which the palatines and anterior ends of the pterygoids glide. The 
height of the skull is so great that, although the hemispheres of the 
brain lie down between the eyes more than.in most birds, yet the 
compressed rostrum of the basisphenoid and the lower edge of the 
perpendicular ethmoid do, together, make a great keel, larger than 
the sternal keel of the Love-bird (Agapornis pullaria). The ante- 
rior pterygoid processes are thrown out of relation to the pterygoids, 
which grow no spur to answer to them; they are dull forthstanding 
prickles. The exoccipitals are not nearly so much scooped to make 
a drum-cavity as in the smaller Parrots ; the tympanics, like the 
columellz, are lost. The main piece is large in some of the smaller 
kinds. In front of the great cranio-facial hinge, the nasals and 
nasal processes of the intermaxillaries are converted into the merest 
swollen sponge; behind the hinge, on each side, the lachrymals are 
also swollen; but the frontals dip to form a valley between the or- 
bits. Then there is a pair of frontal, and anothey pair of parietal, 
smooth, large, rounded swellings, with a shallow, equally smooth 
valley between them. The width of the head is nearly two inches at 
the point where the postorbital process of the frontal melts into the 
postorbital spur of the alisphenoid (post-frontal proper). Below and 
behind this point it is more than two inches wide. The junction of 
the thick quadrate splint (squamosal) with the post-frontal spur is 
so extensive as almost to cover in the small heart-shaped “ temporal 
fossa.” This bridge of bone is half an inch across. The optic fora- 
mina are about one-third of an inch apart ; the olfactory fissures are 
at the same distance. There is an elegant, small, shell-like middle 
turbinal on the front of the self-developed “pars plana,” or antor- 
bital, and the simple crus of the-ethmoid curls upon itself, so as to 
form an upper turbinal. There are evidently full two coils to the in- 
ferior turbinals, which are ossified in a fenestrate manner, as in mam- 
mals, and which project far beneath the alee nasi. These latter are 
ossified separately in the Parrots, and then, in many instances as in 
this, acquire an adhesion with the nasals and the inferior turbinals. 
The outstanding spurs of the antero-inferior septal bone increase the 
complexity of the nasal labyrinth. 
The sternum has its fenestrae nearly filled up. The sternal keel 
