6 Shufeldt, Osteology of the Red Wattle-Bird. [ist ju>y 



entirely different is the skull in such a species as Prosthemadera 

 novce-zealandicB of New Zealand — a bird placed among the 

 Meliphagida—tha.t a separate description would be required to 

 give an account of it. Here the nasals are very broad antero- 

 posteriorly, and each is pierced by a central foramen — an unusual 

 character. Then the pars plancB are very thick from before 

 backwards, and a longitudinal groove marks the external aspect 

 of each. 



" In not a few particulars Acanthogenys rufigidaris of Australia 

 is a Meliphagidine species with a skull not at all unlike what we 

 find in the species of Ac author hyncJms, and these forms are more 

 or less nearly related. Acanthogenys has the broad nasals, each 

 pierced by the small central foramen, and there are several other 

 points in the two skulls of more or less close agreement. But such 

 representatives of the Meliphagidce have no special relationship 

 with the CcerehidcB, and even less with the typical NectariniidcE. 

 Judging from the skulls alone, it is not difficult to recognize the 

 more or less close relationship existing among the species I have 

 before me of the genera Entomyza, Acanthogenys, and Prosthe- 

 madera, all of which present characters in this part of the 

 skeleton quite different from anything we find in Arachnothera, 

 and surely offer no skull-characters at all approaching any of 

 the Trochilidce."* 



Turning our attention next to the basis cranii of AnthochcBra 

 carunctdafa, we are to note that all the characters it presents are 

 essentially those pertaining to this part of the Passerine skull. 

 The ]a.rge foramen magnum is of a subcordate outline, with rounded 

 posterior apex and nearly transverse, straight base situated 

 anteriorly. Hemispherical in form, the occipital condyle is of 

 extremely minute proportions, unnotched and sessile. Some- 

 what elevated in character, smooth, and of considerable extent, 

 the basi-temporal area presents the usual fossae, at the bases of 

 which we note the foramina for certain vessels and nerves passing 

 to and from the brain-case. 



* Schufeldt, R. W., "On the Comparative Osteology of the Passerine Bird 

 Arachnothera magna, Proc. Zool. Soc, Lend., 1909 (Aug., 1909), pp. 527-544, 

 PI. LXVII. The two paragraphs quoted are found upon page 533 of this paper. 

 When this contribution appeared there was considerable elation in many quarters 

 over the fact that I had found all the representatives of the Nectariuiida and 

 MeliphagidcT to be completely Passerine in the matter of their osteology, and in no 

 way especially related to the Humming-Birds {Trochilidti-). Indeed, so exultant 

 were some of our avian morphologists, and nearly all of our systematic ornithologists, 

 over this announcement, and the candid and emphatic manner in which it was set 

 forth, that the circumstance was quite lost sight of by them, that, although there 

 was but little in the skeleton of any of the birds belonging to the Nectaritiiidce and 

 MeliphagidiE which at all suggested an affinity between those two families and the 

 Trochilidiv, this circumstance in no way detracted from the truth of my previous 

 demonstrations, published in many places in Europe and America, that the skeleton 

 of a typical Swift [Cypseli) and a Humming-Bird (Trochili) were, in their correspond- 

 ing characters, apart from their "unnotched sterna" and " long hands," essentially 

 utterly different, and it still remains for the avian taxonomer to decide what such 

 wide differences in skeletal structure as exists between these two groups of birds, the 

 Cypseli and Trochili, really indicates. 



