300 PROFESSOR W. K. PARKER ON THE 
Passerines ; and the passage for the orbito-nasal nerve is some distance from that for 
the olfactory, as in Anthreptes (Plate LIII. fig. 6, 1, 5). 
Example 69. Skull of Anthreptes malaccensis. Family Nectariniide. 
Group Oscines. ~ 
Habitat. Celebes. 
This bird is more Sylviine, and is very useful to bridge over the space between Necta- 
rophila and Sylvia; it has, however, characters of its own, and also shows a likeness 
to the Muscicapide (see Lalage, Part I. pl. lxii. fig. 1, and Muscicapa, Plate LII. 
fig. 9). The whole skull, although very delicate, is much less so than in the last, and 
approaches that of the Warblers in general and the Flycatchers in particular. The free 
anterior margin of the basitemporal (Plate LIII. figs. 3, 4, 0.¢) is tridentate ; but, what 
is of more importance, the basipterygoids break out again as small spines on the base 
of the parasphenoid (pa.s, b.pq). 
The pterygoids (pg) are shortish, rather stout, and carinate on the bowed outer mar- 
gin; they are confluent by their laminar anterior “foot” with the palatine and meso- 
pterygoid (pt.pa, ms.pg). The latter parts agree with the same in Nectarophila, but are 
stouter; and the whole interpalatine angle is bevelled off, showing the ethmo-palatine 
shell, to which the vomerine crus, which is short, is articulated. ‘The transverse isthmus 
of the palatine is wider than in the last instance, and the transpalatine (¢.pa) is inter- 
mediate between that of Mectarophila and Lalage; the prepalatine bar (pr.pa) is thicker 
than in the last instance, and more outbowed. Between these bars there is a triangular 
tongue of bone proceeding from the premaxillary, the palatal processes of which are 
not distinct from the prepalatines. 
The maxillary and maxillo-palatine processes (ma, ma.p) are like those of Nectaro- 
phila; and so also is the vomer, save that it has shorter crura both behind and in front, 
these latter being broader also. Here also things are reversed; for the vomerine crura 
are not ankylosed to the ethmo-palatal coil, whilst the pterygoids are to the postpalatal 
plate. The small, soft, and not deep septum nasi and the turbinals agree with the last; 
so also does the swollen ecto-ethmoidal mass on the whole; but in Anthreptes there is 
a small conical lacrymal, sticking like a limpet to part of the massive ecto-ethmoid 
(fig. 6, 7, e.eth). 
Below, on the foot-like base of the pars plana, there is an elegant oval mass of bone 
semidistinct from its root; this is the “ os uncinatum” (fig. 6, p.p, 0.u). The septum 
of the orbits is largely membranous ; the perpendicular ethmoid (p. e) sends a frail bar 
back into the preesphenoid, which has no wings and only a small descending process; in 
this these two Nectariniide agree closely. 
The rest of the skull in both these types is but little different from that of any ordi- 
nary soft-billed songster; to know one is to know all; and I have carefully chosen 
the parts for description in which the specialization is most marked. 
