| OCR Text |
Show 1867.] PROF. HUXLEY ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF BIRDS. 429 it remains perfectly distinct from the other maxillo-palatine and from the vomer. The plate is perforated by four holes, between which a sort of St. Andrew's cross of bone is left (fig. 8). It follows from this description that, in the dry skull of the Plover, the blade of a thin knife can be passed, without meeting with any bony obstacle, from the posterior nares alongside the vomer to the end of the beak. On each side of its commencement the basisphenoidal rostrum presents a small elevation, terminated by a flat oval facet (fig. 6, x), which represents the basipterygoid process of the Ratitae. A corresponding facet on the inner edge of the pterygoid bone, nearer its anterior than its posterior end, articulates with this (fig. 6). The angle of the mandible is elongated into a slender process, which bends abruptly upwards, and is frequently broken off (fig. 6). The Pluvialine form and arrangement of the maxillary, palatine, and pterygoid bones just described are substantially repeated in the following Pressirostres and Longirostres of Cuvier:-Charadrius, CEdicnemus, Vanellus, Hcematopus, Cursorius, Scolopax, Numenius, Under view of the skull of Grus pavonia. From a specimen in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. The letters as before. |
