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NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



where the restricted crotaphite fossae are nearly entirely confined 

 to the lateral aspect of the cranium, upon either side, and are 

 shallower and more inconspicuous. Coccystes has a poorly developed 

 sphenotic process, while the more prominent squamosal one is double. 

 These two apophyses stand far apart, and in no true cuculine bird 

 that I am familiar with are they produced anteriorly to fuse at their 

 distal extremities as they do in many of the gallinaceous fowls. 

 Indeed, I see but few, if any, galline characters in a cuckoo's skull, 

 and it must have been in some other rather than the osseous system 

 of these birds that led Garrod to announce at the time he wrote 



Fig. i Fig. 2 



Fig. 1 and 2 Superior, 1, and basal view, 2, of the skull of the Great spotted 

 cuckoo, Coccystes glandarius. Natural size. Drawn by the author from 

 the specimen 



"that the Musophagidae and the Cuculidae are very closely related 

 to the Gallinae." 1 



Passing to the base of the skull it is to be observed that, an- 

 teriorly, the spongiform maxillo palatines fuse together in the median 

 plane, while posteriorly each is produced backward as an elongate, 

 blunt-pointed process, standing out independently of each other, 

 and separated, mesially, by a considerable interval. The long, 

 narrow and thin prepalatines are carried forward each to the outer 

 side of one of these processes to fuse anteriorly with the various 

 maxillary elements at the base of the superior mandible, and thus 

 contributing their share toward the formation of the very complete 

 bonv floor of the nasal cavitv. 



1 Garrod, A. H. Collected Scientific Papers. Lond. 1881. p. 470. This writer was 

 of the opinion that Opisthocomus partly filled the gap between the groups mentioned- 



