100 
MR, W. K. PARKER ON THE STRUCTURE AND 
front of it the strong stunted zygomatic process with its small oval, glenoid facet 
(gif) on its inner face in front. The basisphenoid (b.s.) was cut across near its 
front margin, and only part of the alisphenoids are shown—-just to the notch for the 
3rd branch of the 5th nerve (V 3 .). Then we see the sphenoidal fissure between the 
two wings (Y L 3 .); the optic foramen (II.), the orbital foramen (V 1 .), and the orbital 
tunnel (V 3 .). 
The palate is much like that of the newly born specimen (Plate 12, fig. 6), but the 
palatines (pa.) are relatively longer, the palatal portion of the hard palate being nearly 
as long as that of the maxillary (mx.), which is very imperfect in front, and shows the 
long ( borrowed ) palatine processes of the premaxillaries (px.), and the forked antero¬ 
inferior part of the vomer (v.). The alveolar flange of the maxillary (mx.) is perforated 
in two or three places, and the right palatine has lost its bony floor in one place, just 
as in Marsupials and some Insectivores, but not to the same extent. A small seed-like 
jugal (j.) is now to be seen on the angle of the maxillary—its jugal process—hut there 
is no lacrymal, and the place where that bone and the bony “pars plana” should be 
seen is merely an enlargement of the very open suture—like a mere crack —which 
runs, above, between the frontal and maxillary, and then, below, between these two 
bones and the palatine, where it rises into the floor of the orbit, in front. 
The hind view of the fore skull (Plate 13, fig. 3) shows the strength of the frontal 
cincture, the concavities (“digital impressions”) of the inner table, the enormous size 
of the ethmoid with its cribriform plate (cr.p.), and the strength and depth of the 
“crista galli ” (cr.g.). The optic foramina (II.) are surrounded by bone, and the 
whole anterior sphenoid ( o.s .) is about equal to that of Man —relatively to its size. 
The sphenoidal fissures (V 1, 2 .) are large oval passages, and the nasopalatine canal ( n.p.c .) 
is large and subcircular. The manner in which the squamosal grow downwards to 
form the hollow zygomatic processes is also seen in this view, and the thinness of 
the floor of the sella turcica (l.s., read b.s.). The pterygoids (pg.) are anchylosed, 
to a great degree, to the posterior sphenoid. 
A front view of the nasal end of the dry skull shows that the septum nasi (fig. 4, 
s.n.) in front of the vertical ethmoid is unossified, but that the nasal and inferior 
turbinals ( n.tb ., i.tb.) are quite bony, and anchylosed to the nasals (n.), in one case, 
and to the maxillaries (mx.), in the other. 
Orycteropodihe. 
Nearly ripe embryo of Aard-Vark , Orycteropus capensis (Plates 14, 15). 
Here, if anywhere, we have a generalized type, evidently very archaic. Figures 
of the adult suggest the idea that this is an ancient, primordial, unarmed Armadillo.* 
* The figures (Plate 1, figs. 9-11) given of the head in this nearly ripe embryo (belonging to the 
Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons) are suggestive of the new-born young of several types of 
