118 THE CRANIAL PECULIARITIES OF THE WOODPECKERS. 
front is found, combined with a complete absence of the maxillo- 
palatines, in Menwra.* 
Professor Huxley in his paper “On the Classification of Birds,’ 
has entered into considerable detail respecting the Woodpecker’s 
palate, and from not finding a vomer present, and observing the 
peculiar longitudinal bony spicula connected with the inner edges of 
the palatine bones, opposite to and behind the fenestree they assist to 
Page 359. enclose, is led to think that these spicule are the rudiments of the 
vomer, which has not ossified across the middle line. But in carefully 
prepared skulls they look much more like the inner edges of the 
imperfectly ossified palatines, as they are connected completely with 
them at both ends. Further, in most of the specimens of Gecinus 
viridis and its allies that I have had the opportunity of examining, I 
have found a median bone, situated between the palatines, and sup- 
ported like a vomer on the basisphenoid rostrum, at the anterior ends 
of its broader portion. This bone is small, and shaped very much like 
a spear-head with the tip directed forwards, whilst posteriorly it 
gradually becomes fibrous and tends to bifurcate, but not in the 
ossified part. It does not extend backwards quite so far as the 
pterygo-palatine articulation. 
The accompanying sketch will enable its shape and position to be 
more clearly perceived. 
Palate of Gecinus viridis, showing the vomer 2, between the palatines Pl. The 
pterygoids are marked Pt, and the spine of the basicranium a. 
* Since the above has been in print, I find that the maxillo-palatines are not 
absent in Menwra, but are long and slender, differing somewhat from the ordinary 
Passerine type, but separate from one another and from the vomer. 
+ “ Proceedings of the Zoological Society,” 1867, pp. 415-472. 
