OF GALLINACEOUS BIRDS AND TINAMOUS. ' 163 



The middle ethmoid is relatively twice as broad below the hinge as in Crax, more so 

 than in Oallus ; it ends in a transversely straight hne. In front of this line there is a 

 delicate upper septal piece, of small extent ; and the roots of the inferior (the so-called 

 middle) turbinals have in them a small grain of bone. In front of this there is another 

 piece, ossifying all the rest of the septum ; its continuousosseous alse diminish anteriorly, 

 and it has two pairs of bony outgrowths on its sides : the lowest and most anterior of 

 these are the homologues of those bony crura which in Hawks, Owls, and many other 

 arboreal birds project from the septum, and divide the nasal canal from the external 

 nostril. These processes have been erroneously considered to be the inferior turbinals : 

 they are continuous ossifications of that expanded anterior part of the base of the septum 

 which can be so well seen in the embryo Ox, which has been described by Rathke in the 

 Frog, and which exists in all air-breathing Vertebrata. Talegalla and Ocydromus greatly 

 approximate in these structures, save that in the latter its inferior turbinal ossicles are 

 larger, and the septum has an additional short piece, in front of which the rest of the 

 septum is only developed above in a flat tongue of bone ; it is a question also whether 

 the upper prefrontal is autogenous in Ocydromus : it has also an additional ossicle 

 behind the vertical ethmoid ; an ethmo-septal piece between the eyes. 



The premaxillaries form a very strong bone, high, arcuate, trenchant, and helping 

 the nasals to form, in the dry skull, large short-pyriform nostrils, — not long-pyriform 

 as in the Fowl, still less oHong as in the Rail. Yet there is a Ralline character 

 peeping out even here ; for in the Fowl, owing to the gently concave hne between the 

 crura of the nasal, the large end of the pyriform space is behind ; in the Talegalla it is 

 in front — the crura of the nasal diverging at an acute angle, as in the Rail, the " Grallee " 

 generally, and in water-birds (excluding the"Anatidse"). The angles of the premaxillaries 

 are more abrupt in the Fowl ; and their nasal processes, which, in the Gallinse generally, 

 e. g. Gallus, Crax, Tetrao urogallus, continue separate along nearly all their length, are 

 completely fused into a bony tongue as in Ocydromus, but which does not coalesce 

 with the ethmoid as in that bird. The prevomerine bones are as feeble as in the rest 

 of the Gallinse ; but the inner process of each bone is not continuous with the body in 

 the same scarcely constricted manner as in the Fowl and the Ostrich. Yet it is 

 broadest at its root, and each process converges towards the other in a somewhat 

 sigmoid manner, the upper surface of each of these flat spaces being convex, and the 

 lower concave ; they appear in the dry skull as blunt retral hooks. These parts, in the 

 Talegalla, are nearer their typical condition, as seen in Crows, Finches, and Warblers, 

 than they are in the " Phasianinse " and " Tetraoninse :" they are quite unlike what is 

 seen in the Rail and in water-birds. The zygomatic process of the prevomer is very 

 long, reaching more than two-thirds of the distance to the os quadratum. The palatines 

 seem at first sight to be only as much developed as in the Fowl ; a second look at 

 them shows that they have the anterior portion better developed and broader, as in the 

 Goose, whilst there is a rudiment of that second ridge which in higher birds grows 



