SKULL OF THE “GITHOGNATHOUS BIRDS. 277 
fore part is a large plate; but it soon coalesces with the palatine, one side first, as 
first-winter birds show. The palatines are intermediate between those of Sy/via and 
Fringilla; for the postpalatine keels, running into the interpalatine spikes (Plate L. 
figs. 9, 10, 7.pa), are curled over to make a partial floor to the nasal canal; and yet the 
transpalatine is like that of a soft-billed bird, being outspread, triangular, and apiculate. 
The ethmo-palatine (¢.pa) is larger than the lower lamina, and sends a sharp spike 
outside the long vomerine crus, with which it eventually coalesces. 
The prepalatine bar is long, slender, and Sylviine; it passes forwards mesiad of the 
long delicate palatal process of the premaxillary (p.pr). The rest of the premaxillary 
and the maxillary are like those of a stout soft-billed bird. The maxillo-palatine 
processes (ma. p, indicated in outline in fig. 9) are large decurved spatule, with thick 
inner edges and round ends, and a concave but not tubular upper surface. 
But the vomer and its relation to the nasal capsule claim most attention in this type; 
for here we have the Fringilline characters “‘ without controversy.’ It is broadly ox- 
faced in shape, short, broad, with long outbowed legs and a strong median keel below. 
Above (fig. 10, v) it has a large groove for the fore end of the rostrum, the rims of 
which are turned inwards, exactly as the interpalatine lamine are below. Opposite 
the middle third of the keel there is, on each side, a septo-maxillary, prickle-shaped, 
and having directly over it a pneumatic foramen; for the vomer is thick and spongy. 
At its fore edge the vomer passes insensibly into the nasal labyrinth for a good distance, 
nearly twice the extent of its own proper body. Below, on each side, in front of the © 
aciculate septo-maxillaries, the vomerine bony substance runs into the inturned lamina 
(i. a. 1), close above the maxillo-palatine pedicle. Then, looking below, we see two 
large oblique fosse, divided by a bony ridge, and ending in a bony ridge; these are flat 
at the top (figs. 9 & 10,7. a. 1, a. tb). These arise from arrest of this free ossification 
leaving the rest of the alinasal turbinal and nasal wall soft; so that here an ox-faced 
vomer becomes cervicorn by extension beyond its own region of bony substance. The 
septum nasi becomes largely bony with age, and the inferior turbinal somewhat 
calcified. 
The ecto-ethmoid is more massive and spongy than in the “ Fringillide ;” but the 
two nerves pass out of one chink. The foot of the pars plana is large, but has no 
os uncinatum separate; its outer margin has a round notch; there is no lacrymal. 
The Lark in its song manifests the excellencies of its right- and left-hand relations, 
and altogether is a borderer on the “‘marches” of two families—the Motacillide, and 
the Fringillide. 
Example 55. Skull of Coal Tit (Parus ater). Family Paride. Group Oscines. 
Habitat. Great Britain. 
If our native typical “ Titmice” can be shown to have a very characteristic speciali- 
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