400 Anxals of the Carnegie Museum. 



Rhynchopsitta pacJiyrliynclia (Thick-billed Parrot), as occurring in 

 southwestern Texas and southern New Mexico/ 



Avian taxonomers and ornithotomists still entertain considerable 

 doubt as to the position of the Psittaci in the system, and much pains- 

 taking labor is \^et required before we can gain any exact knowledge 

 of their true affines. This applies also to the classification of the 

 Parrots among themselves as an isolated group. Studies of the 

 morphology of a great many of the si)ecies is what we stand par- 

 ticularly in need of; and this in some cases i^Strigops') also demands 

 to be supplemented l)y a research into their embr3'ology. 



Before presenting the osteological characters of Co/iunis caroliiicusis 

 and other forms, we will submit here some of the opinions of leading 

 ornithotomists having reference to the taxonomy of the Psiftaci as a 

 group, and of the probable relation of this group to others of the 

 Class. Some of the earlier systematists, as Bonaparte and others, 

 placed the Psittaci above all other birds, claiming for them the first 

 place in the Class. 



Professor Huxley created for them his Psitfacoinorphce as one of the 

 best defined groups of the order Cariuatce. He has said of them that 

 "all the Parrots present wonderfully uniform cranial characters" and 

 that they "constitute one of the liest defined groups of birds, having 

 affinities, though of no very close character, with the .\ctomorphas 

 and the Coccygomorphas. ' ' 



In this morphological characterization of the Psittacomofpha, he 

 tersely presents us with some of the most striking anatomical peculiar- 

 ities of Parrots, and these are sufficiently well known now to obviate 

 the necessity of recapitulating them in the present connection." 



Ten years later Professor Parker said that ' ' The desmognathous 

 Parrots are very uniform, having the most complete cranio-facial 

 cleft, with a perfect hinge -joint between the frontal and nasal regions. 



' Ridgway, Robert. A Manual of North American Birds, 1887, p. 269. In 

 this work it would seem that I am made responsible for this parrot having been 

 observed in southern New Mexico. My knowledge of this rests upon the statement 

 made to me by a captain of cavalry, U. S. Army, who commanded a scouting party 

 in southwestern New Mexico in 1886 or 1887, who, when in camp just north of the 

 Mexican line, noticed one morning "in the trees near his tent a flock of green parrots 

 that had very large bills, and which were very noisy." 



2 Huxley, T. H. On the Classification of Birds; and on the Taxonomic Value 

 of the Modifications of certain of the Cranial Bones observable in that Class. P. Z. S., 

 London, 1S67, pp. 415-472. 



