SKULL OF THE ^GITHOGNATHOUS BIEDS. 277 



fore part is a lai'ge plate; but it soon coalesces with the palatine, one side first, as 

 first-winter birds show. The palatines are intermediate between those of Sylvia and 

 Fringilla; for the postpalatine keels, running into the interpalatine spikes (Plate L. 

 figs. 9, 10, i.x>a), are curled over to make a partial floor to the nasal canal ; and yet the 

 transpalatine is like that of a soft-billed bird, being outspread, triangular, and apiculate. 

 The ethmo-palatine (e.pa) is larger than the lower lamina, and sends a sharp spike 

 outside the long vomerine crus, with which it eventually coalesces. 



The prsepalatine bar is long, slender, and Sylviine ; it passes forwards mesiad of the 

 long delicate palatal process of the prsemaxillary (2).px). The rest of the prsemaxillary 

 and the maxillary are like those of a stout soft-billed bird. The maxillo-palatine 

 processes {nia:. p, indicated in outline in fig. 9) are large decurved spatulse, with thick 

 inner edges and round ends, and a concave but not tubular upper surface. 



But the vomer and its relation to the nasal capsule claim most attention in this type ; 

 for here we have the Fringilline characters " without controversy." It is broadly ox- 

 faced in shape, short, broad, with long outbowed legs and a strong median keel below. 

 Above (fig. 10, v) it has a large groove for the fore end of the rostrum, the rims of 

 which are turned inwards, exactly as the interpalatine laminae are below. Opposite 

 the middle third of the keel there is, on each side, a septo-maxillary, prickle-shaped, 

 and having directly over it a pneumatic foramen ; for the vomer is thick and spongy. 

 At its fore edge the vomer passes insensibly into the nasal labyrinth for a good distance, 

 nearly twice the extent of its own proper body. Below, on each side, in front of the 

 aciculate septo-maxillaries, the vomerine bony substance runs into the inturned lamina 

 {i. a. I), close above the maxillo-palatine pedicle. Then, looking below, we see two 

 large oblique fossae, divided by a bony ridge, and ending in a bony lidge ; these are flat 

 at the top (figs. 9 & 10, i. a. I, a. tb). These arise from arrest of this free ossification 

 leaving the rest of the alinasal turbinal and nasal wall soft ; so that here an ox-faced 

 vomer becomes cervicom by extension beyond its own region of bony substance. The 

 septum nasi becomes largely bony with age, and the inferior turbinal somewhat 

 calcified. 



The ecto-ethmoid is more massive and spongy than in the " Fringillidee ;" but the 

 two nerves pass out of one chink. The foot of the pars plana is large, but has no 

 OS uncinatum separate ; its outer margin has a round notch ; there is no lacrymal. 

 The Lark in its song manifests the excellencies of its right- and left-hand relations, 

 and altogether is a borderer on the "marches" of two families — the Motacillidce, and 

 the Fringillidse, 



Example 55. Skull of Coal Tit (Parus ater). Family Paridae. Group Oscines, 



Habitat. Great Britain. 



If our native typical " Titmice " can be shown to have a very characteristic speciali- 



2q2 



