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Show 258 REV. O. P. CAMBRIDGE ON N E W [Feb. 15, " The Tinamous, largely specialized into a kind of low gallinaceous carinate type, yet retain the same form of skull and face as the Ratitae. Thinocorus also retains much that is dromoeognathous in its skull, mixed with normal schizognathism : but superadded to these characters we find an intimate union of the broad vomer with the largely developed alinasal floor; a little more metamorphosis, and the palate would have corresponded with that of the Passerine birds. "But in this bird, as in the Hemipod (Turnix) it is not in the structure of the vomer and its relation to the nasal labyrinth that we find all the Passerine characters. The face, generally, is rich in such modifications: I showed them in m y former Part with regard to Turnix, and in this in the genus Thinocorus. " In the marvellously specialized skulls of the Passerinae unlooked-for osseous centres often appear; these are often very uniform iu certain families which are more or less allied. " The first I may mention here are the "palato-maxillaries;" these are a pair of bones, separately representing the ingrowth of our upper jaw-bone which forms the "hard palate." I find these in the following families, namely Tanagridae, Brachypodidae, Mniotiltidae, Ccerebidae, Cardinalidae, Icteridae, and Emberizidae. In some families, besides lesser ossicles added to the vomer, one on each shoulder, the vomer is not merely composed of a right and left half, but each moiety is more or less broken up into two centres. Here we have repeated the tetramerous vomer (vomers and 'septo-maxillaries') of the Snake and the Lizard. The families showing this structure more or less clearly are the Mniotiltidae, Ccerebidae, Vireonidae, Muscicapidae, and Saxicolidae. " With the exception of Menura, the South-American types are most generalized, low, and, I may say, ancient; next to them the Australian birds, and those from Malaisia and Central America; whilst the most highly specialized types belong to the northern hemisphere generally. " Looked at from m y particular morphological stand-point, facts like these seem to me to be well worth the pleasant labour I have spent in obtaining them." This paper will be published entire in the Society's ' Transactions.' The following papers were read :- 1. On a new Order and some new Genera of Arachnida from Kerguelen's Land. By the Rev. O . P. C A M B R I D G E , M.A., C.M.Z.S., Hon. M e m b . New-Zealand Institute. [Received January 15, 1876.] (Plate XIX.) The few examples of Arachnida found during the late Transit-of- Venus Expedition to Kerguelen's Land, and kindly sent to me by the Rev. A. E. Eaton, I propose now to describe and figure. Almost |
