^°'iS"'] Shufeldt, Osteology of the Red Wattle-Bird. y 



Quadrates and pterygoids are of the usual Passerine type, though 

 it may be said that the distal extremities of the latter are but 

 very slightly expanded. 



Either palatine is a shell-like formation, articulating some- 

 what extensively beneath the sphenoidal rostrum with the fellow 

 of the opposite side, while the posterior angle of either bone is 

 produced as a long spicula-form process, and the narrow pre- 

 palatine is extended forward to make the usual articulations with 

 the bones of the roof of the mouth. Mesially, there is a consider- 

 able interval between the prepalatines, and in this interval the 

 posteriorly bifurcated and anteriorly truncated vomer is visible. 



The floor of either orbit, and all the central portion of the roof 

 of the mouth, are entirely deficient in bone, and this condition 

 obtains in the case of all the Meliphagidcs, owing to the extreme 

 slenderness of the palatines, pterygoids, zygomas, the lateral 

 processes of the premaxillary and small maxillo-palatines. 



In the larger representatives of the Meliphagidce, if not in all, 

 the lateral masses, composed on either side of the ethmoidal 

 element, the lachrymal and pars plana, form one of the largest 

 and altogether the most conspicuous part of the mid-region of 

 the skull, and through the various articulations of this mass — 

 or masses — the stability of the cranio-facial region of the skull 

 is practically insured and maintained. This is the case in many 

 Passerine birds. 



Posteriorly, the occipital area is distinctly circumscribed by a 

 low, linear curved line, convex superiorly, and carried down 

 laterally upon either side to the external auditory meatus. In 

 the middle line here there is always present a conspicuous and 

 smoothly rounded supra-occipital prominence, though not quite 

 as well marked a one as in Nectariniidcs and Trochilidce. Through 

 the middle of this the aforesaid line always passes. No foramina 

 occur upon either side of it, and a similar prominence is present 

 in the various species of birds named in the foregoing pages of 

 this paper. 



Anthochcera carnnculata, in common with other Meliphagidine 

 species, possesses the usual V-shaped lower mandible, which is 

 slightly decurved from about its middle to the apex (fig. i, 

 Plate I.) 



The upper and lower borders of the rami are smooth and 

 rounded, while distally the considerable symphysis present is 

 concave above and correspondingly convex below. A large 

 elliptical ramal vacuity is always present in either ramus of the 

 jaw in all the typical Meliphagidce, and the sutural boundaries of 

 the several bones in its neighbourhood are entirely absorbed. The 

 articular end of this mandible is truncated posteriorly, concaved 

 above for the quadrate, and correspondingly convex below, with 

 the usual various apophyses short and blunt. 



In such species as Prosthemadera nova-zeal a ndice the hinder 

 part of either ramus is markedly weakened through the presence 

 of the unusually large ramal vacuity on either side, the upper and 



