PROF. W. K. PARKER ON A:GITHOGNATHOUS BIRDS. B05 
The trabecular arch, hidden behind by its under-beam the parasphenoid (pa.s), has no 
basipterygoid processes. Beyond the “hinge” it is soft, and, as in the Crow, is first 
narrow, and then spreads out as two oblique wings with a crenate and wavy margin (¢7). 
The prenasal cartilage has been absorbed ; and, beneath, the coalesced trabecular horns 
have grown into a triangular tongue of cartilage: this is the “ recurrent lamina” (re. ¢). 
The ox-faced vomer (uv) has two crescentic emarginations in front; it is not uncommon 
to find a fore-looking projection at the mid line. This bone becomes pinched behind, 
its sharp legs converging ; it has below a scabrous appearance from the loss of its peri- 
osteum, which was supplying it with new osteoblasts. On its shoulders it carries the 
great nasal vestibule ; its moieties are grafted upon the “ inturned alinasal lamine ” (i. 
a. 1). Neither in the young Redstart, nor in the adult Whitethroat (Sylvia cinerea) have 
I been able to detect any lateral ossicles or septo-maxillaries. I have also searched for 
them in vain in the Wagtails (Budytes rayi and Motacilla yarrelli); but in the Willow- 
wren (Phylloscopus trochilus) they are very evident on each side “in the substance of the 
nasal cartilage. This bird differs in some other respects, as we shall see. In the Red- 
breast (Hrithacus rubecula) they are very small. The segmentation of the trabeculz to 
form the cranio-facial hinge is, if the now absorbed prenasal be taken into the measure- 
ment, in the middle of the bar. 
On each side of the septum nasi the nasal wall bends in as a wavy-edged floor-plate (n,f), 
above which is seen the large alinasal turbinal (a. tb). The coalesced praemaxill are 
such as we see in the young of all these birds, the dentary portion (d.pa’) largely over- 
overlapping the maxillaries (mx), and the palatine spur (p.pa) binding the outside of 
the prepalatal bar ( pr.pa). 
The large vomer almost wedges aside the moieties of the palato-pterygoid arch as 
much as in the “ Ratite.” Indeed the adults of the Coracomorphe seldom form any 
thing like a “ palatine commissure ” such as is so common in other perching and climb- 
ing birds. The right and left bars are bound together by the inwedged vomers ; and the 
practical commissure is made by the early fusion of these bones. 
The long, slender, rounded pterygoids—-more slender still in the adult—have but a 
little epipterygoidean process in the young (e.pq) ; but this is evident and well formed in 
the old bird. A “mesopterygoid” (ms.pg) is breaking itself off from the fore part, 
where it overlaps the palatine. But for the diagnostic transpalatine lobe of cartilage 
(t.pa), the body of the palatine would be the almost exact counterpart of that of the 
Hemipod (see Pl. LIV. fig. 1, pa), the main difference being the greater length of the 
ethmo-palatal spurs that bind the outer edge of the vomerine crura. The transpalatine 
element answers very exactly to that of the Crow, being a rounded auricle; but in the 
adult (at least in Sylvia cinerea) the periosteal layers grow backwards, and give it an 
angular finish behind. The maxillary (fig. 13, ma) ends in front as far forwards as 
the palatine, and behind almost reaches the quadratum. The delicate jugal (j) nearly 
reaches the angle of the premaxillary in front. The maxillo-palatine process (ma’.p) is 
VOL, 1X.—PaRT v. December, 1875. 27 
