2l8 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



skulls of the tame turkeys at my command, while in all the others 

 of this latter series an irregular vacuity of some size exists in it 

 [fig. 37, MS]. 



Before passing to the consideration of the characters at the base 

 of the skull, it would be as well to state that the skulls of wild 

 turkeys differ as a rule from each other but very little, and only 

 to an extent due to the usual variation of each individual skull, 

 whereas in a series of these specimens chosen from the domesticated 

 turkey, we occasionally find a skull which in its several details more 

 closely approaches the average skull of the wild bird. 



Now at the base of the skull I fail to find any constant differ- 

 ences in the basitemporal area of the two series, or in the quadrates, 

 or the infraorbital bars, the palatines, the basisphenoidal rostrum, 

 the maxillopalatines, or in the under side of the premaxillary. 



In the case of the pterygoids, however, I think it will as a rule 

 be found, that in the wild species they are rather longer and 

 slenderer than in the skull of the average tame turkey. Certainly 

 it is so in the specimens before me. Although not showing .any 

 very marked difference between the two varieties, for it appears 

 to be equally well developed in both series, I have found the 

 " vomerine ossifications " the most interesting features at the base 

 of the skull of these turkeys. 



I am not familiar with any exhaustive work devoted especially 

 to the anatomy of Meleagris, and passing over the many recent 

 textbooks and memoirs referring to fowls, by the Parkers, Huxley, 

 Claus, Bell, and others, I take, the statement of the author of the 

 article " Birds " in the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britan- 

 nica as final authority on the subject, and he says that " in the 

 Gallinaces, as in the desmognathous Rapaces, the vomer is single; 

 in pigeons and Sand grouse it is absent." 



Now the facts presented below are based upon my careful dis- 

 sections of the heads of n turkeys in the flesh, of the two kinds 

 under consideration, with the view to determining the condition of 

 the vomer alone. Some of these investigations were made upon the 

 heads while they were absolutely fresh ; others had been a short 

 time in alcohol ; while still others were either parboiled, or had 

 been submitted to prolonged though careful maceration. In all 

 the cases the structures were examined under a powerful lens. I 

 found the usual plane of soft tissues extending from the entire 

 anterior margin of the ethmoid to the posterior margin of the car- 

 tilaginous nasal septum. Now when a bird possesses a single vomer, 

 it is in this median plane of tissue that it is found, and for the 



