Shufeldt : Osteology of the Psittaci. 401 



There is no vomer ; the palatines are vertically elongated posteriorly, 

 while anteriorly they are horizontally flattened, and movably united 

 with the rostrum. The hu hrymal and postorbital (or sphenotic) bend 

 towards one another, and unite by the intervention of a large os 

 uncinatum or antorbilal. in some also the temporal fossa is bridged 

 over by the union of the zygomatic process of the squamosal with the 

 OS uncinatum. The nasal septum is a thick wall of bone ; an annular 

 ossicle is found in the alinasal cartilage oi Melopsittaciis undiilatus ; in 

 Falivornis torqiiaia this part is largely ossified and anchylosed to the 

 upper jaw, and the alinasal turbinal is partly calcified."^ 



Prior to this, however, that is in 1874, the late Professor Garrod 

 had examined certain sets of anatomical characters in no less than 82 

 species of Parrots, and in that year he published in the Proceedings of 

 the Zoological Society of London the results of his labors. Masterly as 

 this work is, his classification of the Psittaci based upon it, is (juite 

 artificial, and hardly deserves adoption, except in a few of the jjoints 

 he makes. This is chiefly due to the fact that he ignored much of the 

 osteology in the various species, and only paid attention to a few sets 

 of morphological characters.* 



Prof. Alfred Newton has expressed himself in the following words in 

 reference to Garrod' s labors upon the group of birds now under con- 

 sideration, and as his views are (juite in accord with my own in the 

 premises, his remarks are here fully (juoted ; he says, "The principal 

 points to which he attended were the arrangement of the carotid 

 artery, and the presence or absence of an aml)iens muscle, aa oil- 

 gland, and a furcula ; but except as regards the last character he un- 

 fortunately almost wholly neglected the rest of the skeleton, looking 

 upon such osteological features as the formation of an orliital ring and 

 peculiarities of the atlas as 'of minor importance' — an estimate to 

 which nearly every anatomist will demur ; for, though undoubtedly the 

 characters afforded by blood-vessels and muscles are useful in default 

 of osteological characters, it is obvious that these last, drawn from the 

 very framework of any vertebrate's structure, cannot be inferior in 



3 I'arker, W. K., and Hettany, (i. T. The Morphology of the Skull. London, 

 1S77, p. 264. 

 ^ * Garrod, Alfred Henry. On some Points in the Anatomy of the Parrots which 

 bear on the Classification of the .Suborder. P. Z. S. , London, 1874, pp. 5S6-598. 

 See also his Collected Scientific Papers, London, 1881, pp. 247-263, Plates VI and 

 VI L It would be as well to add here that Prof. Garrod's successor, Mr. Forbes, 

 had very little to say about the anatomy of the Psittaci. 



