1878.J PROF. A. H. GARROD ON INDICATOR MAJOR. 933 



In Indicator the vomer is less ossified than in the Capitonidae 

 above mentioned, and is smaller ; the fork is slenderer and has longer 

 limbs, which, however, quite typically join the well separated 

 maxillo-palatiaes (which advance but slightly beyond the inner 

 margins of the palatine bones) at their posterior angles. 



As the Ramphastidae have to be mentioned so frequently in con- 

 nexion with the genus under consideration, it may be useful to 

 refer to the vomer of this family. By Prof. Huxley it is included 

 among his Coccygomorphae, in which the vomer, if present, is pointed 

 anteriorly. Prof. Huxley further remarks ' that in Ramphastos " the 

 antero-internal angles of the palatines not only meet, but are united 

 by bone." But close examination demonstrates a large tabular 

 truncation of the anterior extremity in the Ramphastine vomer, 

 which I cannot help thinking Prof. Huxley interpreted as a median 

 osseous bridge formed by the (supposed) blending of the antero-in- 

 ternal angles of the palatines. Figure 2 represents the vomer of 



Fig. 2. 



Palatal aspect of the trunc ited vomer of Ra.niph<istos artel, with the posterior 

 parts of the palatine bones retained in union with it. 



Ramphastos arid, freed from its surroundings. It does not send 

 forward limbs to join the maxillo-palatines [which are those of the 

 desmognathous Capitonidae inflated], but helps by its terminal ex- 

 pansion to complete, by contact or ankylosis with the palatine on 

 either side, the posterior wall of a cavity in the dried skull, bouuded 

 laterally and superiorly by the inflated and infused maxillo-palatines, 

 anteriorly by the nasal septum together with ossifications in the nasal 

 cartilages associated with it. 



In the * Transactions ' of the Linnean Society 2 Prof. Parker de- 

 scribes the vomer of Ramphastos toco as double, it being composed 

 of a smaller posterior and a larger anterior bone, the truncated 

 nature of which I am not able to infer from the account given. 



The Capitonidse, the Ramphastidae, and Indicator are intimately 

 associated, therefore, so far as the vomer is concerned. Nevertheless 

 the proportionally great length of the limbs of the vomerine fork 

 in the last-named form, and the considerable separation of its small 



1 P. Z. S. 1867, p. 444. 2 Linn. Trans. 2nd ser. vol. i. p. 127. 



Proc. Zool. Soc— 1878, No. LXI. CI 



