PEOF. W. K. PAHKEE ON ^GITHOGNATHOUS BIRDS. 319 



American types ; it is as if its father had been a GraUaria and its mother a Pitta, but 

 to become an Artamus it had risen higher in the ornithic scale than either of its parents. 



Example 10. Bendrocolaptes albicollis, Vieill., 6 . 



Habitat. Brazil. Group " Tracheophonse," Miiller ; family " Dendrocolaptidae." 



Mr. Sahin's collection yields me five types of this kind of Southern passerine, in 

 which the segithognathism is of the first or distinct variety of the complete kind ; the 

 members of this family and of the " Tyraunidse " seem to me to stand near to, but in 

 reality higher than the " Formicariidse ; " 1 speak thus, however, rather of their facial 

 morphology than as an ornithologist. 



In some of these, as in my present instance, the basipterygoids are indicated by spurs 

 of the basitemporal (PI. LIX. fig. 1, b.t, b.pg). At first sight this seems a trifle ; but 

 morphology has no trifles : it is a Lacertian stigma. Every student knows that the 

 innermost laminw of the massive " parosteal " basitemporals of the bird become the 

 practical symmorphs of the Lizard's basisphenoids — symmetrical ectostoses ; also that, 

 whilst in the bird the basipterygoids are ossified by the parasphenoidal rostrum, in the 

 Lizard they are hardened directly from the basisphenoids. In our ascent from the less 

 developed to more highly metamorphosed types, we constantly come across this 

 " changing of hands," in the finish of a part. That Dendrocolaptes should have the 

 Lacertian character is like a touch of " atavism ; " it can scarcely be other than a 

 delicate link in a long evolutional chain. The strong, rounded parasphenoid (PI. LIX. 

 fig. 1, pa.s) is short in this long-faced bird ; it forms the underbalk to a very massive, 

 non-fenestrate interorbital septum. 



The ossification of the nasal labyrinth is very similar to that of GraUaria ; but I find 

 no trabecular bone ; the upper septal ossification is less ; and so is that behind, on the 

 upper turbinal ; that on the inferior turbinal is larger. 



The alse nasi outside are quite soft ; but their turbinals have each a long endosteal 

 tract, as in GraUaria (see PI. LVI. fig. 9 ; and PI. LIX. figs. 1 & 2, «. tb). I find no 

 subnasal alse to the thin knife-like cartilaginous septum nasi : the fenestra separating it 

 from the meso-ethmoid (fig. 3, p. e, c.f. c, s. n) has become a " notch " by extension 

 downwards of the cleft, such a closed cleft as is seen in GraUaria (PL LVI. fig. 10, c.f. c). 

 In this respect Bendrocolaptes has risen above those " Formicariidse ; " but in its 

 aegithognathism it is below them ; for I cannot find any advance of the bony matter of 

 the vomer into the turbinals ; it stops quite short. The vomer («) is very curious, its 

 coalesced part being very wide and short, and its legs almost close together. A small 

 septo-maxillary (fig. 2, s.mx) is seen intervening between the outer angle of the upper 

 vomeiine lobe and the extremity of the alinasal turbinal. The flat, broad, closely 

 clinging vomerine crura are ankylosed to the ethmo-palatine plates ; the angular process 

 on each side, in front, is articulated obliquely and strongly to the maxillo-palatine, in 

 the manner of a zygapophysis. The ankylosis of the secondary bones of the upper jaw 



