332 PROF. W. K. PARKER ON 4GITHOGNATHOUS BIRDS. 
In front of the fenestra the recurrent lamina (rc. ¢) is ossified (fig. 5); and behind 
its posterior boundary there is another, smaller opening—a posterior nasal fenestra 
(p. n. f+). 
The ale nasi are not ossified, except where they turn inwards, behind; and here also 
the aliseptal lamina is partly osseous. 
The fore part of the septal base is alate (fig. 4); and behind this the thick lower edge 
of the large deep septum is pneumatic; the large opening is seen from below (fig. 4, 
s. 7). In the young (fig. 3, v) the vomer is almost exactly the counterpart of that of 
Elainea; but its lobes are not so divergent. In the adult it is a huge bone (figs. 4 & 5, v) 
alate laterally, and with large swelling pneumatic lobes above. So high are these lobes 
that they allow the posterior septal (trabecular) bone to ride in between them; for they 
rise as a wall on either side. . The air-cell within opens on each side, looking also for- 
wards; these foramina gape widely, and show through the fore part of the vomer, the 
diploé of which has been extensively absorbed to form this thin-walled, two-mouthed air- 
bottle. The septo-maxillaries are lost in the lateral al of the vomer. 
The pterygoids (py), as in Hlainea, are long and slender, well hooked behind, and 
laminar in front. Even in the young the mesopterygoid has coalesced with the palatine : 
in the old bird the pterygoids and palatines coalesced. The palatines (pa) are of great 
interest zoologically. In the young (fig. 3) they have less of that weak outbent form 
seen in Elainea, and the prepalatine bars are wider; the bilaminar tract running 
from the outer angle to the mid line is much longer fore and aft, and ends in front in 
almost equal ethmo- and interpalatine spurs. 
The postpalatine keel (pt.pa), running from the interpalatine, is bevelled, as in 
Elainea; and the transpalatine spur (fig. 3, f.pa) is exactly such as that of Hlainea 
might have been if periosteal growths had gone on lengthening and sharpening the 
retral process. In the old bird (fig. 4) all this is intensified. And now, if the reader 
will refer to the figures of Hemipedius, Thamnophilus, Pachyrhamphus, Pipra, Elainea, 
Lanius young, and Lanius old, he will see a most perfect series, with the exception of 
the crowning typical form, namely Corvus (compare Plates LIV., LV., LVII. & LXI.). 
Near the fore end of the prepalatal band there is on the inside in the adult a broad- 
ening of the bone with a free retral spur; this is not, as in the Woodpecker, the end 
of the palatine process of the preemaxillary, but the end of the recurrent alinasal 
lamina, the right and left processes being wide apart and not near as in Elainea (fig. 1) ; 
the relation of the palatine to the preemaxillaries is quite normal (see figs. 1 & 3, p.pa, 
pr.pa). 
The dentate, bract-shaped maxillo-palatines (m.p) are very elegant hooked flaps of 
bone, only pneumatic at their broad, non-pedunculate root: they are not typical. And 
here also I have to note the ‘‘ Laniidze” as being delow the Crows, 
' If this is accidental, then we search in vain for order, law, or Lawgiver in the Cosmos; for these grada- 
tional instances of relation are only culled haphazard from thousands of bird-forms. 
