THE SKULL IN THE WOODPECKERS AND WRYNECKS. 3 



until the appearance of Professor Huxley's paper, the best ornithologists classed birds of 

 the Cuckoo-form, together with the Woodpeckers and Wrynecks, as " Picarise." So 

 much as the author of that paper made out of the palate of the Pici has been of great 

 value to me. My own study of the structure of these birds, both of hard and soft parts, 

 dates back to the early part of the year 1843 ; the unpublished results of that labour, in 

 the form of minutely careful drawings, are still of considerable value for reference. 

 More recently, before my friend's researches were made, I had from time to time taken 

 up my preparations of the British species for the sake of comparing them with the skulls 

 of other ornithic types, and for their own elucidation. This was never fully satisfactory ; 

 and even with the help of Professor Huxley's work, until very lately they continued to 

 be enigmatic. 



In addition to my older material, including some nestling Wrynecks in spirits, the 

 opportunity to dissect three young green Woodpeckers, and to inspect and figure the 

 skulls of three southern species *, has resulted in the figures and descriptions which 

 I now offer. In the first species I shall describe the whole face, but in the others merely 

 the prseoral structures. This is in consonance with other researches of the same kind in 

 Avian families. 



Morphologically considered, the palate is composed of just so much of the vertebrate 

 face as exists in front of the oral {double) cleft, namely : — the trabecule cranii, and the 

 parts developed around them in front and above ; and below and behind those foremost 

 structures, so much of the mandibular arch as develops quasi-independently in the 

 maxillo-palatine lobe the pedate process of the mandibular arch. 



These proper palatine structures form a secondary arch in front of the mouth, distinct 

 enough in the higher types ; but in cartilaginous fishes, amphibia, &c. it shows its true 

 nature, in the former as a pedate spur of cartilage, growing forwards from the primary 

 apex of the visceral rod, and in the latter either as a fore-growing spur, as in the 

 " Urodela," or as a conjugational band tying together the trabecula and the mandible, as 

 in the " Anura." 



Thus in the large series of types which I have determined to compare together, it has 

 seemed fit to me to take a very small territory ; yet that territory contains parts that 

 have undergone the greatest amount of metamorphosis of any in the whole body of a 

 high and noble vertebrate, and moreover being, in the bird, the skeletal framework of the 

 whole upper face, these parts are, as it were, an index of the amount of speciali- 

 zation undergone by any particular type — the ruling determining structures that lead to 

 all, and really demand all, the changes that take place in the rest of the organism. This 

 is especially explained for the benefit of those who will accuse me, and have already 

 accused Professor Huxley, of taking a narrow view of the Bird-types — touching with 

 the point of a needle some little tract, but unacquainted with and not able to appre- 

 ciate the Bird as a whole. This we calmly but indignantly deny; and the allegation 

 is the more ungrateful in that we do not come as those who would have dominion 

 over the faith of the mere zoologists, but as helpers of their work, letting in fight from 

 a new chink. 



* My helpers in this matter are my kind friends Messrs. Murie, Bartlett, Dines, and Salvin. 



b2 



