PtLEORNIS OBSCURA.. (PI. I. figs. 1-5.) 



Bill with a tooth-like notch near the tip of the premaxilla, and with a corresponding 

 emargination near the tip of the mandible ; the rest of the cutting-edge sharp and 

 unbroken. The bill is considerably flattened, being much broader than it is high at 

 the base, with a prominent culmen. The nostrils are oval and open, situated at the 

 anterior ventral corner of a large and soft coriaceous groove, nearer the tip of the bill 

 than the base. The neighbourbood of the nostrils is bare of feathers ; the rest of 

 the coriaceous groove is covered with feathers, and there are a few upper rictal 

 bristles. 



The hones of the palate exhibit distinctly Turdine features, and differ considerably 

 in their arrangement from that which exists either in Muscicapidae (e. g. Muscicapa, 

 Petrceca) or in PachycephalinEe. The vomer is forked anteriorly and posteriorly, and 

 is, as in the Thrushes, not accompanied laterally by septo-maxillary splints, which 

 are well developed in Flycatchers and in Pachycephalias. The palatine bones articulate 

 posteriorly with the pterygoids and are well separated from each other, so that the 

 sphenoid remains visible between them. The interpalatine spurs are long and almost 

 touch the long and uniformly slender maxillo-palatines, while the ends of the latter 

 are widely separated from the interpalatine spurs in Shrikes, Flycatchers, and Pachy- 

 cephalias, but not in Thrushes. Moreover, the slender distal halves of the maxillo- 

 palatines of Phceornis are scooped out ventrally for the reception of certain air-sacs, 

 while these bones in the Flycatchers are distally swollen to a considerable extent, 

 and in Pachycephala are triangular, broadest at the base. 



Tongue thin, smooth, much shorter than the bill, elongated, slightly arrow-shaped, 

 and slightly bifurcated at the tip. 



Pterylosis. — There are ten primary remiges, of which the tenth or terminal is 

 functional and well developed, being nearly half the size of the ninth, and two and a 

 half times larger than its covert. The tip of the wing is formed by the seventh, sixth, 

 and fifth quills. The number of secondaries is nine, that of the rectrices twelve, of 

 which the outer pairs are slightly shorter than the rest. The feather-tracts are much 

 generalized (resembling, for instance, those of Psittaoirostra), but numerous hair-like 

 feathers are interspersed between the contour-feathers of all the tracts, and the spaces 

 between the dorsal and ventral cervical tracts are sprinkled with small downy 

 contour-feathers. The shape of the saddle differs much from that of the Pachy- 

 cephalinae, but in the Muscicapidae and Turdidas this varies too much to permit of safe 

 comparisons. 



The metatarsus is covered by three long and unbroken laminae — one in front, one on 

 the median, and one on the lateral side. The possession of three long laminae is rather a 

 Turdine feature, while the metatarsus of the Pachycephalias, except in the subgenus 

 Pachycephalopsis, is entirely covered with transverse scales ; the same transverse 

 scutellation exists still more markedly in the Muscicapidae. 



Alimentary canal. — The oesophagus showed no trace of a crop. The stomach was 



