284 PROFESSOR W. K. PARKER ON THE 
As in Suthora, the inferior turbinals appear to be but little ossified ; and the ale nasi 
are in both cases soft. The ecto-ethmoid projects moderately from the frontal edge 
(fig. 6, e.eth); and the pars plana (p. p) is a large spongy wall, greatly emarginate in a 
rounded manner externally ; above, it has a wide common opening for the two nerve- 
trunks, as in South-American Passerines generally, and as in Suthora, where, however, 
the passage is relatively much smaller; and it terminates below by a rounded foot. 
There is no os uncinatum, and no lacrymal. 
In all this detail, except in the deficient separation of the bones to form the cranio- 
facial hinge, there is scarcely any difference of consequence between the two skulls. It 
would be too much, perhaps, to say that they might belong to species of the same 
genus; but they are certainly representative genera, the small bird from Eastern Asia 
being, as one might expect, more specialized than that from Eastern America. Then, 
in the north the Titmice are typical forms, the culminating type of the group. 
Example 59. Skull of Nuthatch (Sitta europea). Family Paride. 
Group Tracheophone!, 
Habitat. Great Britain. 
The head of this bird is of the same length as the last ; but in Cyclorhis the beak is 
shorter, and the cranium both longer and also much wider than in Sitta europea, and 
appears large enough for one of the smaller Thrushes, the body being no larger than 
that of the Nuthatch. 
In this latter bird the head is much like that of Parus; but its narrower cranium 
and longer rostrum, both being strong, remind the observer of the skull of one of the 
lesser Woodpeckers. So far as the skull of Sttta differs from that of an ordinary soft- 
billed songster, so much nearer does it come toa typical Tit. The pterygoids (Plate LI. 
fig. 7, pg, ¢.pg) are strong straight bones, with an unusually sharp and long epipterygoid 
process, very sharply bent forwards. The spatulate fore end of the bone is quite normal, 
and shows no additional mesopterygoid as in Parus ater. The postpalatine keels are 
moderately large and are emarginate in their hinder edge; the isthmus is broad, and 
runs into two nearly equal lamine, as in Parus and Suthora (pt.pa, i.pa, e.pa). The 
transpalatine angle is less thrown backwards than in its congeners, and it is roughly 
dentate behind. The long prepalatine bar (pr.pa) is Parine, being a strong and rather 
wide sinuous plank ; yet it falls off from the Tits as much as that of Cyclorhis by run- 
ning insensibly into the rostrum. This latter part also has no more hinge above, nor are 
the maxillaries (mx) more hinged on the sides, than in that type. As in Cyclorhis and 
Suthora, the distinctness of the palatal portion of the premaxillary from the dentary is 
quite lost (p.pa, d.pa). So also, as in Cyclorhis, the median line of the rostrum is 
‘I give this on the authority of Macgillivray (Brit. Birds, vol. iii, p. 49). He says that the “inferior 
laryngeal muscles form a small knob, and apparently single.” 
