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Show 1867.] PROF. HUXLEY ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF BIRDS. 431 which become thick and spongy, and so closely approach the middle line that, in the Albatroses, only a very narrow cleft is left on each side of the vomer. The front part of the vomer itself is much more strongly bent downwards than in the Gulls ; and the ascending process of the palatine bone is greatly produced, and becomes anchylosed with the vomer. Procellaria gigas holds a sort of middle place between the Gulls and the Albatroses, the maxillo-palatines being less swollen, and the clefts between them and the vomer far larger than in Diomedea. In this species again the basipterygoid processes are present, though I have not been able to observe them in other Procellariidee. Fig. 13. + Diomedea exulans. Under views of the skulls of Procellaria gigantea and Diomedea exulans. From specimens in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. The letters as before. |
