IIESPEEORNITHES 393 



account of the paired vomers. These were, however, not 

 particularly like the presumed vomers of the woodpeckers 

 (see p. 187). Each bone is broad behind, where it may, as 

 in struthious birds, have articulated with the pterygoids, and 

 tapers in front to almost a point. It is not clear whether 

 the bird really had, as Mabsh is disposed to infer, a ' dromseo- 

 gnathous ' palate. In any case the basipterygoid processes 

 are present, and the articulations on the pterygoids are 

 towards the posterior end of these bones, as in the skull of 

 the StrutMones. The palatines are longi&h bones, and are 

 compared to those of the ostrich. They taper in front. As 

 in most StrutMones the articular head of the quadrate, for 

 articulation with the skull, is not divided into two facets. 

 The rami of the lower jaw do not appear to have been 

 ankylosed together, but to have been connected by a possibly 

 merely chondrified or ligamentous tract, which would have 

 allowed a gaping of the mandibles — seen partly in the 

 pelican, and obviously useful to a fish-eating bird, as we 

 may presume Hesperornis to have been. Both lower and 

 upper jaws have teeth, which are implanted in a continuous 

 groove, widened at the implantation of each tooth. In the 

 upper jaw the teeth are limited to the maxillae, and there 

 were fourteen to each maxilla. The lower jaw had teeth 

 along its entire length, and the number given is thirty- 

 three. 



The vertebrce are saddle-shaped. The number of cervical 

 vertebra is seventeen. The entire vertebral column con- 

 sisted of forty-nine vertebrae. None are ankylosed, except, of 

 course, the sacral series, and some at the end of the tail. 

 Pneumatic openings were not discoverable in any of the 

 vertebrae. The atlas has not been found. In no vertebra 

 do the catapophyses seem to have united to form a ventral 

 canal, a state of affairs which is occasionally met with in 

 the StrutMones and is characteristic of the Herodiones and 

 Steganopodes. The fourteenth cervical is extraordinary by 

 reason of the enormous size of the two catapophyses, which 

 are approximated and nearly parallel. The following vertebra 

 has the first median hypapophysis, which is bifid at the free 



