508 PROFESSOR W. K. PARKER ON THE 
in having a septo-maxillary on each side above the edge of the bone at its middle 
(fig. 9, s.ma)*. 
The forks of the Sun-Bittern’s vomer are large and divergent; they combine in front 
to form a rounded keel, which dies out where the bone suddenly narrows; it broadens 
in a lanceolate manner again, and then ends in a long bony needle in front. The 
whole fore beak is quite like that of Anthropoides, and very much unlike the very 
bony and solid beak of a Pelargomorph, even of the frailest kinds, viz. Botawrus viri- 
dis, Ardea garzetta. Indeed the wall between the Charadriomorphe and the Gerano- 
morphe is very thin; and if the latter are not special, yet they are general Pluvialines 
(see Huxley “on the Classification of Birds,” Proc. Zool. Soc. 1867, p. 457). 
The palatines, like those of the Kagu (Trans. Zool. Soc. vol. vi. pl. xcii. fig. 2), are 
truly Ardeine ; in the Stilt-Plover (Himantopus) the transpalatine angle is considerably 
produced ; but it is in the true Ardeines, and in Eurypyga and the Kagu, that this is 
most intense. Here the ¢rans- and postpalatines end opposite each other ; in Passerines 
the external process is a good distance in front of the postpalatine end. 
Another point of structure is seen in this type: there is a “ palatal fenestra” (pa. f). 
It is a membranous space tending to divide the proper palatine bar from the “ os trans- 
versum,” or transpalatine, which it does imperfectly. This structure has its highest 
development in the Tiger Bittern, Tigrisoma leucolophum, avery Mycterian Bittern. But 
this structure also occurs down below in a simple Pluvialine, namely the Whimbrel 
(Numenius pheopus). 
The interpalatine ridges, the external sharp edge, and the intermediate deep muscular 
space are well shown here, as in the Kagu and the Ardeines; the prepalatine bar 
(pr.pa) is very long and slender. 
Above, where the slender maxillary is giving off its elegant crested maxillo-palatines, 
there is an ear-shaped process looking inwards from the bone, as in Rhinochetus and 
Psophia, which process I took erroneously for a “ septo-maxillary” snag. The maxillo- 
palatines show but little mesiad of the palatine bars; but above they are each deve- 
loped into a most elegant flask-shaped air-pouch, which opens in front. 
The sutures of the jugal bar (fig. 7) are nearly filled in; the base of the nasal crus 
and the angle of the premaxillary both grow backwards as needle-like styles. 
The upper part of the head is Ardeine. In Anthropoides and the Rails the super- 
orbital edge is bevelled for the nasal gland; in Eurypyga, as in the Kagu and Heron, 
not at all, the edges of the orbit being well produced upwards and outwards, especially 
in the huge-eyed Kagu. 
The septum nasi is ossified, and has a large fenestra in front; it is, however, Ardeine, 
1 In my paper on the Kagu (Trans. Zool. Soc. vol. vi. p. 502) I have spoken of the septo-maxillary as a 
region of the maxillary, a mere process: this is a mistake. For many years I searched in vain for any distinct 
rudiment of those reptilian bones; but although they are absent in many birds, they are common amongst the 
Passerines, as I have lately shown, and turn up in other groups. 
