270 
the same relative extent in Apferyx as in Dinornis; and the confluent anterior part of 
the vomerine lamelle in Apterya probably indicates the true condition of the vomer in 
Dinornis. In Dromaius the non-united halves of the vomer diverge posteriorly in a 
ereater degree than in Apteryx or Dinornis, exposing a greater proportion of the 
rostrum, ‘he obliquely and mesially concave palatal plates converge anteriorly, not so 
much or so soon in Dinornis as in Apteryv, but more quickly than in Dromaius, detining 
more completely a smaller pair of bony palato-nares. It is most probable that the 
detached representatives of “ palatines” worked out of the matrix, in the first speci- 
men, were the parts broken away from the anchylosed union of those bones with the 
palatal plates of the maxillary anteriorly, and with the pterygoids behind. 
In Struthio, Rhea, and Casuarius the pterygoid coalesces with the palatine earher 
than it does in Dromaius. A greater proportion of the yomer is cleft posteriorly in 
Dromaius than in Rhea. Upon the whole Dromaius, among the larger existing Stru- 
thionide, makes the nearest approach in palatal structure to Dinornis and Apterya. 
This closer affinity is shown in the form of the basioccipito-sphenoidal tract and its 
relation to the pterapophyses. In Rhea, which, after Dromaius, comes next in palatal 
conformity, the tract in question sinks abruptly below the level of the pterapophyses, 
which seem to diverge at almost a right angle from the base itself of the rostrum, 
In Dromaius the pterapophyses diverge from the fore part of the tract itself, which 
is on the same level with the back part of the tract, and, as in Dinornis, only distin- 
guished therefrom by the lateral constrictions cr grooves due to the pressure of the 
Eustachian tubes. 
‘The appreciation of the near affinities, among Struthionide, of Dromaius to Dinornis 
and Apteryx led me to select the skull of the Emu to illustrate that of the Moa in my 
first attempts to restore that complex and instructive part of the skeleton of the huge 
extinct New-Zealand apterous birds' . 
The results of the above exposition of palatal structure in the skulls of Dinornis 
crassus have enabled me to restore, from cranial fragments in the Walter-Mantellian 
series, not only the pterygoids and portions of the palatines of Dinornis crassus, but 
also those of the Dinornis ingens as figured in Pl. LX XXII. fig. 5. 
In Dinornis crassus the malar process of the maxillary (Pl. LXXVI. fig. 1, 21), the 
malar (ib. 26), and squamosal (ib, 27) have coalesced into a styliform zygoma 2 inches 
2 lines in length. The malar rises as a low, obtuse ridge toward the postfrontal ; the 
squamosal has a rough elliptic surface at the inner side of its hinder end, which pro- 
jects inward to an obtuse point effecting the “ gomphosis” with the tympanic (28). This 
bone (Pl. LXXVI. figs. 5 & 6), in relation to the shorter mandible, is relatively as well 
as absolutely smaller than in Dinornis elephantopus; the orbital process (4) is more 
triangular, has a broader base than in Dinornis elephantopus: this process is more 
’ Most of the notable modifications of the palate and pterygo-palatine arches have since been figured by Eyton 
in the rich storchouse of the bony structures of birds, entitled ‘ Osteologia Ayium,’ 4to, London, 1864-67, 
