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Show 256 MR. W. K. PARKER ON THE SKULL [Feb. 15, lescentibus : cauda parte basali in rectricibus externis rubri-cante: alarum et cauda pagina inferiore flavicante : long. tota 16*0, ala 8*7, cauda rectr. med. 9*5, lat. 4*5. Hab. Peruvia alta, in reg. sylvatica orientali, ab incolis Loro real dicta (Tschudi). Mus. Novo-Castellano. Obs. Species ab Ara maracana rostro majore, genis solum nudis, area postoculari plumosa, et corporis colore rubro nullo certissime diversa, et Ludovico Coulon, Musei Novo-Castellani Directori optimo, dicata. Dr. T. S. Cobbold, F.R.S., exhibited and made remarks on a Parasite (Echinorhynchus) obtained from the Tamandua Ant-eater which had died in the Society's Menagerie, and had been described in his communication made at the last meeting. Mr. W . K. Parker read the second part of his memoir on iEgi-thognathous Birds *, of which the following is an abstract:- In my former communication I described thirty-one examples of this kind of palatal structure in birds; in the present paper I have added fifty-one more. Altogether these eighty-two birds belong to thirty-nine " families;" so that I have taken, on an average, two examples of each family. The materials for this research have been kindly and liberally put into m y hands by a number of friends, among whom I may mention Professors Alfred Newton, T. Rupert Jones, and Garrod, Dr. Murie, Osbert Salvin, Esq., Robert Swinhoe, Esq., Mr. W . J. Williams, and Mr. Bartlett. I began my last paper with a bird showing " iEgithognathism" in its initial state. I end this communication with another instance: the first was Turnix, this is Thinocorus-both of the utmost importance to anyone seeking for the true passerine phylum. Now if any one will say that because I have found initial iEgi-thognathism in birds so far down below the most degraded (or rather non-elevated) type of Passerines, as these birds, that therefore I, putting these types in the iEgithognathous list, seek to make them appear as " Coracomorphse," such a one has failed to catch my drift. Do we modern biologists believe in the gradual modification of types or evolution of species, or do we not? If we do, we shall reasonably expect to find that our neatly trimmed and highly special types must have had grosser and more general ancestors in the Tertiary period. Allowing this supposition, and looking upon birds as a hot-blooded group whose root lay low down, once, among the cold blooded reptiles, shall we not expect to find birds more or less related to the modern types having the nature of several at once?-"all these in their pregnant causes mixed." In the examples given in this second part I have shown pecu- * For part I. see Trans. Zool. Soc. ix. p. 289. |