344 PROF. W. K. PARKER ON AGITHOGNATHOUS BIRDS. 
produced ; at the inner edge of the recurrent bands there is another ectosteal patch 
(fig. 8, rc. c, sma’). The vomer (figs. 5 & 8, v) is a copy of, or pattern for, that of the 
young sylviine (Pl. LV. fig. 13, »). 
Very large, squared in front, subcarinate, rough and cellular, this bone has a low- 
type character; it has fully coalesced with the ethmo-palatine laminz, and with them 
forms to a large extent a nearly finished floor to the basifacial beam. I note nothing 
more as belonging to the trabecular arch; for there is no appearance of the os uncinatum 
on either the larviform lacrymal or the bulbous pars plana (fig. 7, 7,p.p). These latter 
parts are of extreme interest here ; the lacrymal has a more than corvine development, 
and has the shape of a caterpillar when moving with its procession, erect-headed. 
Coming to the top, in front of the great ecto-ethmoid, it there is bent at a right angle, 
and then twists itself in a sigmoid manner to reach the jugum (J), first wedging in 
the angle of the pars plana(p.p). This lower part of the ecto-ethmoid is, like the 
upper or frontal portion, all swollen and spongy, like that of Hemipodius varius (Pl. LIV. 
figs. 9 & 10). The only room of any extent in the nasal labyrinth is in front, and is 
supplied by the nasal branch of the ophthalmic; the true olfactory region is occluded 
by the bilobate prefrontal mass, which is smoothed into flatness in front of the orbit. 
The pterygo-palatine arch is, on the whole, corvine: but the pterygoids (pq) are ex- 
tremely long and slender, and are elegantly arcuate; they are but little laminate in front, 
and but little uncinate behind (e.pq). 
There is a long, overlapping process of the pterygoid on the upper edge of the pala- 
tine (fig. 7); and there appears to be no mesopterygoid. If this is so, we have a remark- 
able caprimulgine character; at any rate the segment must have been small, as the 
palatines are very little crested above, where they support the basis faciei. The post- 
palatine region is very ¢wrnicine, the ends being bevelled off instead of being crested and 
keeled; and the inner edges of the bone are closely approximated, hiding the para- 
sphenoid below, but do not make a true commissure as in the great “ Fissirostres.” As 
in Hemipodius and Turnix (Pl. LIV.), the interpalatine ridges and spurs form a large, 
elegantly lyriform opening for the posterior nares. The upper or ethmo-palatine lamina 
is of less extent than the lower, and is thoroughly ankylosed to the vomer. 
The transpalatine (¢.pa), although at first view very caprimulgine, is not a general 
leafy breadth of the bone as in the Fern-Owl, but its true segment is shown as a square 
superaddition to the simple struthious or turnicine bar. The cartilaginous segment 
of the young Rook (PI. LV. fig. 1, ¢.pa) needs only to grow further outwards and to be 
squared by periosteal growth, to be like what occurs in the Bell-bird; this bird has 
retained a certain embryonic distinctness in this particular segment. Whilst the ptery- 
goid is a dense, non-aérated bone, the palatine, like that of Caprimulgus, is delicately 
spongy, and altogether thick and inflated. 
From being very broad, it gets an extremely slender prepalatine bar, as in Capri- 
mulgus ; and this slenderness of the fore part corresponds with Turniz. The outline of — 
