2 MR. W. K. PARKER ON THE MORPHOLOGY OF 



The Woodpeckers, like the Parrots, form a well-defined group — too well defined for 

 the morphologist, who is pained for the palseontological losses the hird-fauna has sus- 

 tained, judging from analogy that the mixed forms are lost which would have yoked 

 the most divergent groups together. In the late geological period we have merely 

 the twigs of a few branches of the great genealogical bird-tree ; the main branches and 

 the trunk are buried in the strata. Yet not the less does the morphologist seek in the 

 early stages of the young and embryo bird for the lineaments of the old feathered 

 fathers of the existent types. Hidden from the eye of the mere taxonomist, they yet 

 may be revealed to him, in some degree, by embryology ; but birds cannot be inter- 

 preted morphologically, irrelatively to other vertebrata ; judged merely by themselves, 

 and compared among themselves only, they present enigmas at every turn. 



We all know now how peculiar is that type of ornithic face which is found in Passe- 

 rine birds, and is called by Professor Huxley the "iEgithognathous " palate. Nitzsch de- 

 scribed it ; and I have long been familiar with its more marked peculiarities ; but its 

 morphological importance dawned upon me when I saw that the parts of that complex 

 face, so conjugated and so metamorphosed, were really built up of elements which had 

 their true counterparts or " symmorphs " in the snake. But the snake does but repeat 

 these parts from the Amphibia ; and the Amphibia borrow them from the cartilaginous 

 Pishes, amongst the lowest of which, namely the Lamprey, may be found the fullest 

 development, both morphologically and functionally, of cartilages that form the sub- 

 stratum of the most peculiar part of a Sparrow's face. 



Considered ornithologically, the " Picidse " are full of interest ; but looked at from a 

 higher stand-point they are almost of greater importance to the morphologist than the 

 Passerinse, having for the most part the same curious repetition of parts borrowed from 

 below, but also retaining more evident marks of then ascent from the quasi-pupal and 

 quasi-larval forms of the groups beneath. 



The Woodpeckers have been designated " Celeomorphse " by Professor Huxley (Proc. 

 Zool. Soc. April 1867); but although the "Picidse" and " Yungidse" are thus named as 

 to their general form, yet that author has not given a term for their peculiar facial 

 structure. With clearest insight, however, they are spoken of as " not Desmognathous, 

 the palate of these birds exhibiting rather a degradation and simplification of the 

 iEgithognathous structure" (p. 468). The fact is they are like early embryos of the 

 Passerinse, in their palatal region arrested at a most simple and Lacertian stage, 

 whilst in other respects they are metamorphosed and specialized beyond any other 

 kind of birds. As far as then upper face is concerned, their arrested " maxillo- 

 palatines," symmetrical " vomers," " septo-maxillaries," and feebly developed turbinal 

 scrolls, entitle them to a name which shall be a memorial of their Lacertian facial 

 morphology. I therefore propose to call them the " Saurognathse." 



On the Structure and Development of the Face in the " Picidse (Celeomorphse," H, 



" Saurognathse," P.). 

 The necessity for a morphological study of birds becomes manifest when it is re- 

 membered that Coracias was for a very long time classed with the " Corvidse," and that, 



