PROF. W. K. PARKER ON HGITHOGNATHOUS BIRDS. 327 
been “cared for with all this care,” are illustratively shown in the more general type 
last described, namely Homorus (P}. LX. figs. 1-4). 
The septo-maxillaries have become fixed with the vomerine moieties to form the 
shoulders of the compound bone (compare figs. 2 & 7); but these paired ossicles do not 
account for the spine which grows from the middle of the vomer above (figs. 5-7, 
m.8.mx); this is not symmorphic with the long style in which the vomer ends in the 
Humming-birds, which is in them merely an ongrowth of the two halves of the bone; 
but here the membrane-bone seen separate in Homorus (figs. 1, 2, 3, ms.max) has 
coalesced with the other vomerine elements. 
But for Homorus, 1 should have spoken more cautiously of the median vomerine 
spine of Gymnorhina; but now I speak boldly, and can show the sceptical reader the 
same thing in many a type. It is, indeed, an ossification of the lower edge of the mem- 
brane that fills up the “cranio-facial notch,” and is therefore peculiarly ornithic: 
he who would seek for it in other classes should consider that it cannot be there, as 
they possess no such cleft in their facial axis. In Gymnorhina there is in this bone a 
growth upwards, tending to fill the gap; this crest is fenestrate (fig. 7, m.s.m2). 
There are differencing characters in the two types here compared; but the South- 
American bird is merely a more embryonic and smaller bird than the Australian Piping 
Crow, which in size and in specialization has stolen a march upon its meaner relative. 
The observer reads this in a moment in the two palates (figs. 1 & 5); and the portrayal of 
these parts on one scale makes the comparison easier. The short, stiff, uncinate ptery- 
goids (fig. 5, py) of Gymnorhina are not quite so alate in front as those of Homorus 
(fig. 1, pg); yet they are in both ankylosed to the palatines. This continuity of bone- 
matter makes a wall on either side of the posterior nasal canal, which is here much longer 
than in Homorus ; and these ridges, belonging chiefly to the palatines, are not so strong 
and outstanding as in “ Dendrocolaptide ”’ and ‘‘ Formicariide ; they are also more 
bevelled off towards the end. The ridges which enclose the basifacial balk are princi- 
pally due to the coalesced mesopterygoids; and they end in front ina less arched ethmo- | 
palatine, which is ankylosed to the vomerine crura. Both the interpalatine plates, with 
their aborted spurs, and the upper ethmo-palatine lamine are of small extent, fore and 
aft, as compared with Homorus (fig. 1); hence the postpalatine region and the trans- 
palatine spikes (¢.pa) are much longer than in the lesser bird. 
These peculiar styliform transpalatines are found, as far as I have seen, only south of, 
or upon the equator; and their very curious character, always correlated with other 
differences, might justify one in dividing the “ Coracomorphe ” into two sections, the 
“Noto-Coracomorphe,” and the “ Arcto-Coracomorphe.” With a most remarkable 
amount of harmony between the two types, namely Corvus and Gymnorhina (Pl. LV. 
figs. 1 & 6; and Pl. LX. fig. 5), this modification of the palatines strikes the eye at 
once; and looking abroad we find it characterizing the “ Formicariide,” “ Dendroco- 
laptide,” ‘“ Gymnorhinide,” “Tanagride,” and “ Artamide,” and in those exquisite 
little Australian types Acanthorhynchus and Ptilotis (“ Meliphagide ”). 
” 
