Cranial Peculiarities of the Woodpeckers. 



359 



spicula are the rudiments of the vomer, which has not ossified 

 across the middle line. But in carefully prepared skulls they 

 look much more like the inner edges of the imperfectly ossified 

 palatines, as they are connected completely with them at both 

 ends. Further, in most of the specimens of Gecinus viridis and 

 its allies that I have had the opportunity of examining, I have 

 found a median bone, situated between the palatines, and sup- 

 ported like a vomer on the basisphenoid rostrum, at the anterior 

 end of its broader portion. This bone is small, and shaped 

 very much like a spear-head with the tip directed forwards, 

 whilst posteriorly it gradually becomes fibrous and tends to 

 bifui'cate, but not in the ossified part. It does not extend back- 

 wards quite so far as the pterygo-palatine articulation. The 

 accompanying .sketch will enable its shape and position to be 

 more clearly perceived. 



Palate of Gecinus virich's, show- 

 ing the vomer x, between the 

 palatines PI. The pterygoids 

 are marked Ft, and the spine 

 of the basicranium a. 



Ft — 



Though this bone is situated rather further back than the 

 vomer in most birds, yet it is found similarly placed in some, 

 as in Megalcema, which by the way has the anterior termination 

 of its vomer truncated in front, and produced forwards at the 

 corners, as in the Crow — though in the former bird these pro- 

 cesses articulate, and do not anchylose with the posterior ends 

 of the palatine plates of the maxillo-palatines. 



On cutting the palatine bones of Gecinus from the anterior 



