500 PROF. W. K. PARKER ON AGITHOGNATHOUS BIRDS. 
of an ancient and almost extinct race, a race from which the most highly gifted and the 
most numerous of all the feathered tribes have probably sprung, then the interest in- 
creases ten-fold, and the morphologist will never rest until the relations of every 
branch to this simple stock are understood. 
To this end a clear conception of what is highest in the facial morphology of birds 
is, before all things, necessary; and our Old-World Crows and Warblers will furnish 
us with “that which is most perfect in its own kind,” and therefore fit to be “the 
measure of the rest.” 
ON THE MORPHOLOGY OF THE FACE IN THE CORACOMORPH. 
Example 1. Corvus frugilegus. 
Habitat. Great Britain and Europe. Group “ Oscines,” Miiller; family “ Corvide.” 
In all respects, physiological, morphological, and ornithological, the Crow may be 
placed at the head, not only of its own great series (birds of the Crow-form), but also as 
the unchallenged chief of the whole of the “ Carinate.” 
The earlier stages of the skull-face of this type have already been given (see ‘Monthly 
Microscopical Journal,’ Nov. 1872, pls. 34-39, pp. 217-226). The figures of the 
fledgeling here given (PI. LY. figs. 1-4) are a further working-out of the oldest figured 
in that paper (pl. 38). The dissected palate of this bird (C. frugilegus) is a full revela- 
tion of an “ egithognathous face.” Once clearly understood, this will serve as a ready 
diagnostic in the discrimination of numberless species; by this they all may be judged, 
and then take the right or left-hand file—either to be classed with the Coracomorphe, or 
. take their room lower down with the less-specialized groups. 
The parasphenoidal rostrum (fig. 1, pa.s) is short, and spreads into the symmetrical 
tympanic wings or “ posterior pterygoid processes.” Near the end it has a slight rudi- 
ment of the basipterygoid processes. At the opposite, distal end of the trabecular arch 
the coalesced premaxillaries have a strong scooped triangular body; from this proceeds 
the dentary and palatine process, very close together, and, above, the combined nasal 
processes (d. px, p. pv, n. pa). The parasphenoid (pa.s) has completely coalesced with 
its endo-skeletal part, the proximal half of the fused trabecule; but the pramaxillaries 
have formed no such union with the anterior half. The azygous pranasal cartilage (pn) 
is still only half absorbed ; behind it the coalesced distal ends of the trabeculz are deve- 
loped into a “ recurrent process” (r'¢.c); behind this part they reappear in their originally 
broad flat form (#7), and then immediately in front of the “ hinge-notch” they are com- 
pressed again: this part is seen in front of and above the vomer (v). But this foremost 
facial arch (the trabecular) cannot be studied here separately from the nasal labyrinth. 
In this palatal or under view (fig. 1) the alinasal laminz (a/.n) are continuous with the 
fore ends of the trabecule (cornua trabecule, ¢. tr), and also with the azygous prenasal 
