Prof. W. K. Parker on Long-faced Birds. 217 



XVI. — Note on Long-faced Birds. 



By W. K. Parker, F.R.S. 



In the skull of the Curlew {Numenius arquata) there is a 

 structural advance upon that of the typical Plovers, besides 

 the special elongation of the face for the purposes of explor- 

 ation or probing. Now this elongation of the face, which is 

 relatively much less than in certain Humming-birds, takes 

 place much earlier than in them ; for as Dr. Shufeldt has 

 shown*, in Humming-birds, the face at the time of hatching 

 is but little more elongated than in the ripe embryo of an 

 ordinary singing-bird. In the embryo of Numenius arquata, 

 one third ripe, the skull is longer than the rostrum ; but in 

 embryos three fourths ripe the skull and rostrum are equal 

 in length ; they are each 20 millim. long. The rostrum 

 has not yet begun to be arcuate f- So that in ripe em- 

 bryos the rostrum is far advanced in growth. The same 

 thing takes place in the Kiwi [Apteryx australis), as the 

 observations of my son show. These facts, added to what I 

 have found in the Guillemot, namely, that its endo-cranium 

 undergoes an actual shortening in the e^^, seem to me to 

 prove that long-faced birds are not a new thing on the earth. 

 Nevertheless, I do think that relatively to these terrestrial, 

 wading, and water-birds, the long-faced forms of the Hum- 

 ming-birds are new ; and that in their case the elongation has 

 taken place correlatively with the remarkable development of 

 the flowers of certain neotropical plants. Mud-banks, the 

 home of innumerable Annelids and other invertebrate 

 creatures, the feeding-grounds of wading and water-birds, 

 are not things of yesterday ; flowers with their nectary at 

 the bottom of a very long tubular corolla must be a 

 relatively modern modification. 



* In an unpublished paper. 



t These embryos were the gift of Prof. A. Newton, F.R.S. 



SER. v. VOL. VI. 



