252 PROFESSOR W. K. PARKER ON THE 
figs. 5-8, p. 325) that the skull of the first of these is altogether of a Notogwan type. 
It differs from that of a common Raven or Rook just as the skull of a Tanager differs 
from that of a Sparrow, or the skull of Synallaais from that of a Redstart. 
These large Awstro-corvines may be called “ Gymnorhinide,” from the kind most 
familiar to us, the Piping-Crow of Australia. 
The principal morphological steps taken by the lowest Coracomorphe above the 
super-Tinamine Hemipods are (1) the abortion of the “ basipterygoids,” (2) the deve- 
lopment of the “ transpalatine” spurs, and (3) the direct union of the double vomer 
with the nasal wall and floor. 
How slight and easy these modifications are only the morphologist rightly knows: 
the fitness for arboreal life, the differentiation of the syringeal muscles, the arrest of the 
ceca coli—these and other modifications follow in order. 
Example 28. Skull of Tanagra cyanoptera. 
Habitat. South America. Section Oscines; family Tanagride. 
The skull of this species, as of others of its family, although no larger than that of 
the more robust kind of Finches, yet resembles that of the Old-world Crows quite as 
much as it does the same region in the lesser typical Conirostres (Plate XLVI. fig. 1). 
The facial apparatus is altogether feebler than in the Fringillide; and the palatine 
bones have the slender directly retral transpalatine spurs of the Southern type. Thus 
the face at once suggests a frugivorous rather than a graminivorous bird ; the periosteal 
outgrowths of bone and the strength of the hinges seen in the stouter Finches, whose 
skulls at once resemble those of the Fowl] and of the Parrot, are not seen in the 
‘Tanagers. 
Yet these feebler and more generalized skulls are thoroughly Passerine (Coracomor- 
phous); and, as the Fringillide are closely related through the Larks (Alaudide), the 
Titlarks, and Wagtails to the soft-billed songsters (Sylviide), so the Tanagers are related 
to New-world forms with slender and yet slenderer bills, such as the Mniotiltide and 
Cerebidee (compare Plate XLVI. with XLVIII.). 
The occipital and basitemporal regions (0c.c, 0.¢) are quite normal, and the parasphe- 
noidal beam (pa.s) of average strength. The pterygoids (pq) are long, rounded, pedate 
in front and having a goodly epipterygoid hook (e.pg) behind. Compared with their 
counterparts in the Finches, the palatines are frail, the prepalatine bar is wide (pr.pa) ; 
the interpalatine ridge is not spiked in front (¢.pa); the ethmo-palatines (e.pa) are frail 
shells of bone confluent with the vomerine crura. The main bar narrows towards the 
transpalatine (¢.pa), which is a fine spike, outbowed, and with its apex turned towards 
the mid line a little. The premaxillary mass is, although broad, rather corvine than 
Fringilline ; it is grooved sublaterally, and in the middle; the dentary regions are 
distinct and cultrate; the palatine processes are aborted (d, pa, p.p2). 
Where the latter processes existed in the embryo, a falcate spicule of bone appears, a 
