XVl. OSTKOLOCIV OF TH1-: PSITTACl. 



r.N I )K. R. W". Sill KKLDl-. 



In the Jounial of Anatomy and riiysioloyv of London for A])ril, 

 i8S6 (\o\. XX, I'art III, Art. No. IV, ])ls. X, XI, pp. 407-425). 

 I i)ublished a very full account of the osteology of the Carolina Paro- 

 quet (^Coiiiinis carolincnsis'), it being illustrated by two lithograjjhic 

 jjlates including eighteen figures. Since then I have carefully revised 

 this memoir and incorporated in it osteological notes I have made 

 ui)on certain Cockatoos, Macaws and their allies, while to the con- 

 tribution as a whole there has been added my review of the skel- 

 eton of a specimen of that remarkable bird known as the Owl Parrot 

 (S/r///xv/>s). The figures illustrating my original article upon the 

 skeleton of Cominis were all from the si)ecimen of a male bird, and 

 those desiring to see the morphology of the bones of this i)aroquet 

 illustrated in this way are referred to the Journal of Anatomy, loc. cit. 

 Only the skull and trunk skeleton of a female individual are to be found 

 on a plate in connection with the present memoir. There are here 

 figured in the plates in addition, however, one or two interesting skulls, 

 a trunk skeleton and other bones of other species of Psiftaci that it is 

 believed will be of value in illustrating the text. 



\'arious classifications at different times have been |iroposed for this 

 well circumscribed grou]) of birds, including, as has just been said, the 

 Parrots, Macaws, Parotjuets, and their allies. In the best of these 

 the Psittacidce have invariably been recognized as constituting a family 

 easily to be characterized, and apj^arently one of marked natural- 

 ness. 



The suborder is a comparatixely large one, containing, according to 

 recent authorities, somewhere in the neighborhood of 450 species. In 

 the United States the Psittacidiz are represented at the most but b)' 

 two species. One of these, now upon the road to rapid e.xtinction in 

 this country, has already been mentioned, it being Conunts carolincnsis, 

 (Carolina Paroquet), found at the present time only in certain re- 

 stricted areas in the Gulf States and the Lower Mississippi Valley. To 

 this species, Ridgway also claims for our fauna the form known as 



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