296 MR. W. K. PARKER ON THE OSTEOLOGY OF BALZNICEPS REX. 
In most birds the highest part of the upper jaw is between the nasal fosse, but in 
Baleniceps it rises just behind them into a sort of rough boss, the bone then becoming 
smoother for a quarter of an inch as it gently descends to the middle of the great 
transverse hinge. This character, with the backward extension of the jaw, the shortness 
of the principal frontals, and the very forward position of the enormous, well-margined 
orbits, helps to give a solemn, wise, but somewhat sinister aspect to the bird. Looking 
at the bird in his paddock, the first impression is that we have before us some strangely 
ancient form with ‘‘ the breath of life” in it, and ‘‘ standing upon its feet,’ concerning 
which Geology had taught us that ‘‘its bones were dried up, and its hope lost.” 
Passing from the rough boss forwards, we find the bone again becoming smoother, 
but it continues gently convex along the whole ridge until it expands in the large, ter- 
minal, hooked beak. On each side of this convex ridge the bone is scooped by vessels, 
is concave, and then suddenly rises into a sharp ridge, which overhangs a deep groove, 
forked at its commencement, as it rises above and below the nasal fossa, and becomes 
deep and narrow towards the middle, and wider and shallower as it turns off on either 
side to give boundary to the great terminal hook. 
These sharp boundaries to the great sub-mesial grooves are at first seven-eighths of 
an inch apart, at the anterior third they are scarcely more than a quarter of an inch 
apart, and are three-quarters of an inch asunder at their termination on the lower 
margin. 
In the dry skull of birds there is generally near the zygoma a large triangular space, 
its base being the anterior third of the zygoma, its front side the descending plate of the 
nasal, and the hinder side generally imperfectly bounded by the lacrymal. In the 
Baleniceps no such space exists, or only in rudiment, there being, on the anterior 
margin of the lacrymal, at its upper third, a groove terminating in a small oval passage 
passing inwards, which passage is then followed by a series of small vascular puncte, 
indicating the place where the lacrymal, nasal, and angle of pre-maxillary have so com- 
pletely coalesced. The outer broad surface of the pra-maxilla is not nearly so smooth 
as the crown of the head; its substance is lighter, more marked by vessels, and its 
weight diminished by open areolar spaces,—an approach to the structure of the Pelican’s 
upper jaw. The terminal beak is stronger than, but not so long and sharp as that of the 
Albatros ; it is thrice the size and strength of that of the Pelican ; and the curved tip of 
the Boat-bill’s jaw and that of the Umbre are its feeble representatives. The tip of this 
strong beak is not sharp, but is slightly emarginate, being one-eighth of an inch broad, 
the emargination being still greater in the mandible, The outline of the lower margin 
of the pra-maxilla is very elegant, more so than in the Boat-bill. Looking at its an- 
terior commencement, we find it rising gently up to the middle of the side of the great 
hook ; it then as gently descends, swelling outwards into the arc of a very large circle 
to within ten lines of the angle,—the rest cf the marginal line being nearly straight. 
The thinnest part of the bone is at the middle of the sides, as it is thick at the 
