HOMRAI OF THE HIMALAYA. 



177 



squared behind, concavely crescented before, with the horns of the crescent 

 elevated one inch above the bill, and directed forwards and downwards 

 with a slight curve parallel to the bend of the bill : the posterior edge of 

 the casque, full, rounded, and soft; the lateral and anterior edges, spare 

 and hard. 



The nostrils are small, subtriangular or irregular oval, transversely- 

 cleft, placed at the base and top of the bill, where it joins the casque, and 

 covered with incumbent reflected setaceous feathers. 



The tongue is fleshy, flat, small, with point entire ; its position, the 

 bottom of the throat. 



The head is small ; the parietal and occipital bones, firm and solid ; 

 those of the anterior parts of the skull, cellular and feeble ; the occiput, 

 strikingly defined and furnished with large transverse and vertical cristae ; 

 the orbits, medial and almost entire. Both eyelids have strong bristly 

 lashes, the upper being the stronger and conspicuously flattened or 

 depressed. The tail is long and rounded slightly, consisting of ten very 

 broad, strong, feathers of nearly equal length, but the laterals somewhat 

 shorter than the centrals, and subgradated from below. 



The wings of medial length, high-shouldered, rounded, acuminated, 

 the sixth quill longest; the fifth and seventh nearly equal to it; the first 

 and second much smaller, narrowed, sharp, and incurved ; the longest pri- 

 maries and longest secondaries, equal; the tertials and scapulars, small. 



The legs and feet very stout. The tarsi, lou- ; knees plumed before ; 

 acrotarsia, brokenly and heavily scutellated ; posterior and lateral surfaces 

 of the tarsi, covered merely with coarse; n (itnilatctl skiu : the toes, of sub- 

 medial length, depressed, broad, slm lclcd by a sin^ilc row of transverse 



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