SKULL OF THE AGITHOGNATHOUS BIRDS. 253 
separate “ palato-maxillary (p.ma).” This is a character to be found in several families 
of the Coracomorphe, as I shall soon show. Its presence suggests some delicate bond 
of affinity between the families where it is found }. 
The maxillary is but a feeble bone, ending in a long, slender jugal style, formed by 
its own process and by the free jugal (ma, 7). The maxillo-palatine processes (mw.p) 
are bent both backwards and inwards, in the usual manner, and end in a directly retral 
club, which is large, pneumatic, and has two inferior air-openings. The large vomer 
(v) has the ox-face shape, and is grafted on the inturned alinasal lamina (¢. a/) without 
showing any distinct septo-maxillary ; its distinctness, however, may be sought for too 
late, or too early. The recurrent lamine (trabecular horns) could not be seen; but the 
fore part of the trabecular bars (¢r, s.) showed a fine foliation in front, making the 
septum nasi broadly alate. These ale remain soft ; but the septum, which is fenestrate, 
is ossified. There isno distinct “os uncinatum ;” but clinging to the front of the antor- 
bital is a thoroughly Corvine lachrymal (fig. 2, p.p,/); its head rests against the descend- 
ing crus of the nasal (7), and its foot upon the jugal process of the maxillary and the 
jugal apex (j). The open (bony) nasal passage (e. 2) shows, now that the cartilaginous 
nasal labyrinth has been removed, an elegantly oval space, as in the Crows. 
Example 29. Skull of Violet Tanager (Euphonia violacea). 
Habitat. Barbadoes. 
This small bird shows, very instructively, the Tanagrine type of skull (Plate XLVI. 
fig. 3). The flat, strap-shaped prepalatine bar (pr.pa) narrows greatly backwards, and 
the processes sent from the main bar to the skull-balk are of small antero-posterior 
extent; these are the lower or interpalatine keels, and the upper or ethmopalatine 
shells (i.pa, e.pa); the latter are confluent with the vomer (7). 
The interpalatines run into large, steep, almost semicylindrical postpalatine plates 
(pt.pa), as in so many Southern Passerines; the transpalatine spur (¢.pa) is slenderer, 
straighter, and longer than in Zanagra cyanoptera. Beneath the root of the clubbed 
maxillo-palatine (mx.p) there is a small spicular palato-maxillary (p.ma), partly con- 
fluent with the outer edge of the palatine bar. The vomerine moieties show a septo- 
maxillary (v, s.mz, 7. al) confluent with the substance of the inturned alinasal lamina, 
which is soft beyond that bone. These thick wedges of bone are scooped antero-infe- 
riorly and dovetailed with the diverging vomerine crura. Here the vomer is unusually 
emarginate and cloven. 
Example 30. Skull of Stephanophorus leucocephalus. 
Habitat. Brazil. 
The skull of this Tanager (fig. 4), which is a little smaller than Tanagra cyanoptera 
‘ In the Woodpeckers and Wrynecks this bene exists, but only on the left side (see Trans. Linn. Soc. 187, 
ser. 2, vol. i. pls. 1-5, pp. 1-22. 
2N 2 
a 
