SKULL OF THE ^GITHOGNATHOUS BIEDS. 269 



Example 47. Skull of Corn-Bunting {Emheriza miliaria). Family Emberizidse. 



Group Oscines. 

 Habitat. Great Britain. 



The skull of the Bunting has the same breadth and fulness of form as that of the 

 Icteridae ; its rostrum also is deflected in like manner ; but the boss is not so raised, 

 and the length is much less. The deflection of the bill is very similar in Cardinals, 

 Cow-Buntings, and Buntings ; and the latter seem to me to deserve to have their own 

 little enclosm-e penned off from the great Fringilline territory. On the whole the 

 skull is like that of the Finches ; but, besides its greater breadth, it has its tympanic 

 bullae, formed by the exoccipital tympanic ala, much more dilated and large. The 

 pterygoids are straight and quite normal, giving otf a mesopterygoid segment in front, 

 and having a free moderate epipterygoid behind. But the palatines are almost as feeble 

 as in the Tanagers (Plate XLVI. figs. 1-4 and Plate XLIX. fig. 5). 



The postpalatine keels are steep and emarginate behind ; the transpalatine spurs are 

 small, the interpalatines small, the ethmo-palatine large and coiled, and the prsepalatine 

 bars long, almost straight, and feeble (Plate XLIX. fig. 5, i)t.pa, t.'pa, i.pa, e.pa, pr.pa). 

 In this species the maxillo-palatines (ms.p) are flattish trowels, scarcely pneumatic. 

 In old birds the palato-maxillaries (fig. 5, jj.ih.t) become ankylosed to the praemaxillary ; 

 but in young birds of the first winter I find them free ; they are jammed in between 

 the dentary angle and palatal process of the praemaxillary, and are thickish spatulai 

 with the blade behind, and but little dilated. These bones are longer and narrower 

 than in the Cardinals ; they are unusually large. 



The vomer (v) is quite normal ; it loses the distinctness of its septo-maxillary ele- 

 ment early, and is grafted upon the nasal wall ; this wall does not form so large a floor 

 as in the Icteridss. As in the Icteridse, the septum nasi is largely alate ; and these alae, 

 as well as the edges of the nasal floor, are elegantly dentate (s. m, tr, n.f). 



The fore margin of the vomer has a small median process running into a slight keel ; 

 its edges are thick, and do not send down a ridge. The alinasal walls, septum nasi, 

 and the alinasal and inferior turbinals do not ossify ; the ecto-ethmoid projects con- 

 siderably ; the pars plana is large, and has a concave external margin, ending in a 

 large foot; it is of great size, considerable thickness; and over it, as in Larks and 

 Finches, the first and nasal nerves escape by one chink. I can find neither lacrymal 

 nor OS uncinatum ; in this the Bunting agrees with by far the majority of the lesser 

 Passerines, either thick- or soft-billed. 



Example 48. Skull of Yellow-hammer {Emberiza citrinella). Family Emberizidae. 



Group Oscines. 

 Habitat. Great Britain. 



In the lesser species the palatines are still feebler than in the last, the transpalatine 



2p2 



