ON THE PALATE OF THE NEOGNATH®. 343 
Some Points in the Morphology of the Palate of the 
Neognathe. By W. P. Pycrart, A.L.S., F.Z.S. 
[Read 2nd May, 1901.] 
(Plates 31 & 32.) 
Iy a recent memoir on the Struthious birds (Trans. Zool. Soc 
1900, vol. xv.), I dealt at some considerable length with the 
arrangement of the bones of the palate, and instituted some 
comparisons between this arrangement and that prevailing 
amongst the “ Carinate.” In this same memoir I proposed to 
adopt the characters of the palatal bones as a more convenient 
and more exact distinguishing feature than the characters of the 
sternum, which have done duty ever since their introduction by 
Merrem in 1813. In accordance with the characters of the 
palate, the Tinamous are to be divorced from the “ Carinate”’ 
with which they are generally associated, and placed with the 
Struthious birds. The Struthious birds and Tinamous constitute 
a group by themselves—the Paleognathe ; whilst the remaining 
forms made up a second group—the Neognathe. 
The contention that the Struthious (Paleognathine) palate is 
or a more ancient type than the Neognathine is admitted by all. 
The typical Paleognathine palate is that of Dromeus; and as 
this is to serve as a standard of comparison with the palatal 
bones now to be discussed, we may briefly enumerate its salient 
features. 
The vomer (Pl. 31. fig. 1) is of great size, flattened dorso- 
ventrally, extending far forwards as a broad, median, grooved 
plate to beyond the middle of the beak; and backwards, to 
terminate in a pair of rami beneath the pterygoids, with which 
they ultimately fuse. The palatines are comparatively short, 
flattened, and slightly twisted bones. They run forwards, 
tapering as they go, to terminate in a slender rod, closely 
approximated to the mesial border of the very large maxillo- 
palatine process: they extend backwards to the level of the 
orbital process of the quadrate. The proximal half of the palatine 
(pa.) is relatively broad, and tts mesial border 7s applied to the 
outer border of the fused vomero-pterygoid bar. 
To this vomero-pterygoid bar and its relation to the palatine, 
attention is now specially directed. At the same time, it would 
be well also to carefully examine the form of the palatines and 
