PEOF. W. K. PAEKBE ON .EGITHOGNATHOUS BIEDS. 309 



To this I answer that the existmg " Tumicomorphfe " are most probably a few re- 

 maining wanderers, that still exist from Europe to Australia, of a huge family of birds 

 of all sizes, in great variety of shape, and specialized to all sorts of life. We may 

 imagine innumerable kinds of Struthionidse, Tinamida;, Turnicidae, and that " by these 

 was the whole earth overspread," and that amongst all this variety of " Eatitse," and 

 of " CarinatsB " with almost keeUess breast-bones, there arose from time to time birds 

 with new characters, the stocks and forefathers of walking, wading, swimming, diving, 

 perching, and climbing types : hence came the Dodo and the Solitaire ; and from the 

 same ancient bird-world sprung the gigantic Eails of New Zealand {Aptornis defossor, 

 Owen, and Notornis ManteUi). 



The direct ancestors, in the wide paleontological sense of the word, of the Lyre- 

 bird would most likely have a huge body, feeble wings, a less exuberant tail, an 

 almost keelless breast-bone, bony eye-brows, and a vomer more pointed and relatively 

 larger than in the recent bird ; and that vomer would, like the same bone in Turnix, 

 be attached to the nasal walls by a ligament, and not grafted upon it. 



Then, on that level, possessing incomplete " segithognathism," such a bird might 

 have belonged to a family allied to the " Turnicomorphse." 



Example 4. Pipra auricapilla. 



Halitat. Guiana. Group " Tracheophonse," Miiller; family " Cotingidse." 



This bird may be said to stand on the direct road from the lower CarinatEe to the 

 Crows, and not on the bridle-path, like Menura. 



The bat-shaped swollen basitempoials (b.t) imderlie a thick parasphenoid (PL LVII. 

 fig. l,pa.s), with no trace of basipterygoid process; then the beam becomes gradually 

 narrow to the cranio-facial hinge. In front of the hinge, which is as complete as in 

 the Crow, there is an alate septal base ifr) also perfectly corvine. A fenestra partially 

 separates the trabecular from the nasal part of the septum ; below and behind the 

 fenestra this part of the first arch had its own bony centre ; in front and above, the 

 bony matter belongs to the median part of the nasal labyrinth. A perforate nostril is 

 here formed by the round deep notch below the alate septum {tr) and the recurrent 

 fold (figs. 1 & 3, re. c). Although the septum is so well ossified, the rest of the nasal 

 labyrinth, in front of the hinge, is soft. 



The gently cui-ved beak has an almost triangular outlme (fig. 1); and although its 

 elements are ankylosed together, the various processes can be made out ; the palatine 

 bars of the prsemaxillaries {p.pjx) end in a sharp point ; the dentary processes {d.px) 

 overlap the maxillaries {mx) at the angle of the mouth ; and the nasal processes have 

 shortened ends to articulate with the frontals. Here, again, the vomer (figs. 1 & 2, «) is 

 the most important part. 



The vomerine moieties are broadish and very thin in front, and become filiform be- 

 hind. This part is three fifths the length of the whole ; and their crui-a are very near 



