256 PEOFESSOE W. K. PAEKEE OX THE 



palatine spurs (f .p«) ; but these have a Tanagrine feebleness still, as compared with 

 those of Coccofhraustes (Plate L. figs. 1, 2). Moreover, in the latter the palatines 

 and the jugal bars are roughly hinged ofi' from the fore beak, as in Parrots, but not 

 to the same degree. There is nothing like this in Phytotoma, which retains, even in 

 the most modified parts of its face and skull, the more generalized condition of the 

 birds of the Notogrea. The short prsepalatine bar is broad, and so is the transverse 

 isthmus which runs into the thin laminae of the inter- and ethmo-palatine regions 

 ( i.])a, e.pa) : the latter is of less extent than in the Tanagers, and is completely fused, 

 as usual, with the vomerine crus {v). 



The large, steeply-arched rostrum (figs. 8 & 10) is ossified throughout to an extent 

 only found in certain Southern Passerines, as Artamus, Gymnorhina, and Paradisea 

 (Part I. plates Iviii., Ix., & Ixii.) ; and the peculiar manner in which the broad maxillo- 

 palatines are articulated by a flat facet to the vomer gives to this face a peculiar kind 

 of Passerine Desmognathism. In this respect Phytotoma agrees with Pipra, Thamno- 

 philus. Pitta, (xrallaria. Now this type shows relationship with the Cotingidse, For- 

 micariidse, and Pittidee (Part I. plates Ivi., Ivii.) : it is thus linked on to the most 

 generalized forms found even in the Notogsea. 



But, superadded to all these marks of ancientness, this bird shows, more than any 

 living type, the remains of what are apparently but recently lost teeth — that is, speak- 

 ing palseontologically. 



These bony denticles may be faint memorials of such a confluent dental armature 

 as we see in the Chameleon : they are not the less of interest, seeing that, as yet, we 

 have nothing else intervening between them and the teeth of Odontopteryx (see Owen, 

 Quart. Joum. Geol. Soc. xxix. p. 511 1). It is impossible to compare the anterior part 

 of the palate in Tanagra and Phytotoma without seeing their close correspondence ; 

 and yet we miss in the former the row of clearly defined denticles, both along the 

 dentary and palatine ridges of the prsemaxillary (figs. 8 & 10, d.px, p.px). Moreover, in 

 Phytotoma the end of the beak is pinched off in some degree — it is apiculated. I have 

 spoken of these bony projections as hony denticles ; for if their development were traced, 

 I imagine that the osseous matter of the prsemaxillary would be found to run directly 

 into the arrested dentary papillae. Even in the Mergansers, amongst the horny-toothed 

 birds, the dentary edge of the prsemaxillary is very obscurely marked by denticulations. 



In Phytotoma there are about fourteen marginal elevations, and about ten submar- 

 ginal (fig. 8) ; there is a deep fossa between these, into which the toothed ridge (with 

 one row) of the dentary fits ; this latter is a swollen mass of bone united by a wide 

 bony mass to its fellow of the opposite side. The bony union of the mandibles, 

 however, is feeble and small as compared with what is seen in Coccothraustes, although 

 equal to what may be found in the smaller Parrots. The maxillary (mx) runs feebly 



' See also Prof. 0. C. Marsh " On Odontornithes," Amer. Journ. of Sc. and Arts, vol. x. Nov. 1875, and 

 vol. xiv. July 187". 



