9G 
MR. W. K. PARKER OK THE STRUCTURE AND 
The whole series of palatine bones in this scarcely perfect hard palate is a narrow, 
oblong tract, with the sides gently bowed out, and the ends gently converging. 
Opposite the end of the hard palate the fronto-squamosal suture, which is very large 
(see fig. 8), runs across, and the strong, concave orbital plate of the frontal takes up 
all the orbital space here, except at the inner edge. 
There we see part of the orbitosphenoid (o.s.) notched at its anterior margin where 
the ophthalmic nerve (V 1 .) is re-entering the skull through the orbital foramen. The 
optic passage (II.) is out of sight; but the sphenoidal fissure (V 1, 2 .) comes into view, 
followed by the deeply notched, oblong alisphenoid ( al.s .), notched deeply in the 
middle of its outer margin by the 3rd branch of the 5th nerve (V 3 .); it does not finish 
the foramen ovale, and emerges far in front of the auditory capsule {chi.). Those 
wings and these capsules are both walled in, externally, by the huge squamosals (sq.) 
that have pushed the parietals away from them frontal attachment, below (see fig. 8), 
and continue the general ovoidal convexity of the skull up to the paroccipital promi¬ 
nence ( e.o .). Each bone has a pneumatic cavity opening behind the stunted zygomatic 
process (see also Plate 13, fig. 1— for x 2, read x 3), with its oval glenoid facet, which 
reaches, in this specimen, nearly to the fore end of this arrested process. Then the 
whole lower part of the bone in the postglenoid region is hollowed out to form an upper 
chamber to the “ cavum tympani;” hence the great convexity of the squamosal in its 
hinder half (see also fig. 8). The whole line of junction of this great bony scale with 
the infero-lateral parts of the hind skull is well worthy of remark (Plate 12, fig. 6, 
and Plate 13, fig. 1). A strong flange from the glenoid region, inside the postglenoid 
pneumatic foramen {p.n.f.), binds on to the outer edge of the alisphenoid, running in 
with an angular process to complete the imperfect foramen ovale (V 3 .) and then, after 
leaving the hinder half of the alisphenoid, clamping the antero-external margin of 
the auditory capsule {chi.). Here this “flange” becomes scooped and runs upwards 
until it ends in the general hollowing of the bone above the tympanic cavity. In its 
hinder part the bone strongly closes in under its own pneumatic cavity and interdigi- 
tates with the rough, grooved opisthotic, and the small epihyal bridge {op., e.hy.).* 
Since the last stage (Plate 11, fig. 8,^.5.) the presphenoidal region has become bony 
and the bar (Plate 12, fig. 6, yi-S.) looks like that next behind it {h.s .), but I strongly 
question the independence of it, as an ossification ; it was most probably formed by the 
confluence of the orbitosphenoids in the middle cartilage. 
The next basal piece, the basisphenoid {h.s.) is an independent centre; it is oblong, 
nearly as long as the broad {reptilian) basioccipital, and is separated by a moderate 
tract of cartilage from the other two basal bony plates. In this species there is, now, 
a small pituitary hole (pi/.) at the front third of this flat bone. The huge oval 
basioccipital, behind it, is everywhere surrounded by cartilage except where it binds 
* I am satisfied that anyone wishful to compare the skull of an adult Pangolin with that of any 
high normal Mammal, will not complain of these details, nor make light of the pains I have taken to pull 
this puzzle to pieces to get at its meaning. 
