296 PROFESSOR W. K. PARKER ON THE 
Passing on to details, I may observe that my study of this skull has been from a 
nearly ripe nestling (see Plate LII. figs. 1-3), from well-fledged young, and from the 
adult. The youngest of these suits my purpose best; it was twice as much developed 
as the young Martin whose palate has just been described 1. 
The skull is short and broad; the basitemporal (0.¢) a very narrow band; and this 
part of the basis cranii is very flat, and carinate forwards, as in Caprimulgus. Here 
also, ready to break out, are the basipterygoids (b.pg); here they are mere angulations 
of the upper wings of the basisphenoid, and they even get rounded off in the adult. 
The rostral region of the basis cranii (parasphenoid, pa.s) is much more thick and 
spongy than in the Swallows, but much less than in the Goatsucker, and is exactly 
intermediate. 
The pterygoids (pg, e.pg) are more Hirundine; they are long, slender, gently arcuate, 
and with a fuller epipterygoid, as in Caprimulqus. Their anterior spatula and meso- 
pterygoid segment are normally Passerine (fig. 2, pg, ms.pg). The palatines are pecu- 
liar, but they are Passerine. The transpalatine bone (¢.pa) is scarcely invested by 
ectosteal layers, and is distinct; it is a flat hook. The main palatine bone is peculiar. 
The postpalatine region is bevelled off; it was lessening in the Swallow; but the edges 
that run into the interpalatine spike are well incurved round the postnarial channel. 
The isthmus is of great extent; but the interpalatine spikes run a distance in front of 
it equal to its breadth (¢.pa); they overlap the maxillo-palatines largely, whereas it is 
the rule for the contiguous parts of these processes to be tied together by a considerable 
ligament; in this the Swift is peculiar. A new and Cypseline character is seen in the 
angulation of the main palatine bar in front of the distinct transpalatine, making the 
bar bidentate as it flattens out towards the jugum. In front of this second projecting 
angle the bar is a sinuous plank,. convex below, concave above, and moderately strong ; 
its fine point overlaps most of the delicate palatal process of the pramaxillary, on its 
imner side, as in the Passerines. 
The broad part of the ethmopalatine plate (e.pa) is only two thirds the extent of the 
lower plate; but its spurs are of extreme length, and, contrary to the Passerine norma, 
they lie not only above, but on the inside also, of the long crura of the narrow-waisted 
ox-faced vomer. As in the Swallow and Goatsucker, the premaxillary nasal processes 
and the nasal bones become extremely thin where they are let into the frontals. The 
relative size of the premaxillary is here reduced to the utmost degree for a bird, and 


with the Swift, a miracle of flying-power, which, in deeds, if not in words, says :— 
‘“‘J drink the air before me, and return 
Or ere your pulse twice beat.” 
‘ With these figures compare those of the larger ‘ Fissirostres,” e.g. Caprimulgus and Podargus (Trans. 
Linn. Soc. ser. 2, Zool. pl. 21. fig, 8, and pl. 23. figs. 6, 7). 
