304 PROFESSOR W. K. PARKER ON THE 
for the setting-on of those small blunt hooks, the ethmo-palatines (e.pa). In front 
the vomer gradually, by steps as it were, being somewhat notched, narrows in; and 
the actual fore end may be rounded (fig. 2, v) or slightly emarginate (fig. 3, v). On 
each side of the fore end there is an oblique shoulder, thickened like the keel and 
the margins; to this shoulder is fastened the inturned alinasal lamina (7. a/), the extre- 
mity of the alinasal floor (n.f); it is attached like a splint to the under surface of the 
cartilage, but is not grafted upon it. 
Here the broad double vomer lies, at its fore end, like a floor beneath the contiguous 
part of the nasal labyrinth. The least overgrowth of this bone would have produced 
that remarkable character which is seen in the Passerines. The process is arrested ; 
but the elements are in immediate contact. 
Thinocorus, however, fails in one point, viz. that it has no additional “ septo-maxil 
laries” at this part, which are seen in the Turnicide and commonly in the Passerine ; 
but in the higher forms of that topmost group they are frequently suppressed. ‘The 
vomerine cartilages, or /abials, are not seen in the adult; they may have existed in an 
early stage. The nasal labyrinth approaches that of the Turnicide; the parts are 
totally unossified (walls, coils, and septum). The inferior turbinal (fig. 4, 7. td) is coiled 
once and a half; it is thus inferior to that of the Gallinacee and of Carinate birds gene- 
rally, but comes nearer to the state of those parts in the Turnicide. As in those birds, 
there is a nasal floor of cartilage; but here it is continuous, and not a long severed 
band. The premaxillary mass (fig. 5, pa) is very unlike what obtains in the birds that 
come nearest to this; it is short, high, triangular, and very strong, quite unlike that of 
a Plover, a Crane, or a Rail, stronger and higher than in the Gallinacee, and wholly 
unlike their bony beak in the intense ankylosis by which maxillaries, preemaxillaries, 
and palatines are all welded together into one strong mass, the seams of which are all 
lost. Indeed the beak in this bird is intermediate between that of the conirostral 
Vinch and the curvirostral Fowl. Here I will enumerate the points of harmony between 
this almost undeclared type and the Coracomorphe :— 
1. It is Mgithognathous (imperfectly). 
2. The bill is nearly conirostral. 
. The basipterygoids are more thoroughly suppressed than in any birds except 
the Coracomorphe. 
[s\) 
4. The lacrymal is abortively developed; it is very small. 
5. The ecto-ethmoidal wall projects beyond the frontal roof, is flush with the rest 
of the face, and is highly ossified (fig. 5, eth, p. p). 
6. The space between the forks of the nasal, instead of being a clear slit as in the 
