TRANSACTIONS 



THE LINNEAN SOCIETY. 



I. On the Morphology of the Skull in the Woodpeckers (Picidse) and Wrynecks 

 (Yungidee). By W. K. Parker., Esq., F.B.S. (Communicated by H. T. Stainton, 

 Esq., Sec.L.S.) 



(Plates I.-V.) 



Read April 2nd, 1874. 



Introduction. 



MODERN zoologists, when at fault in their taxonomy, not knowing where to place 

 some perplexing specimen or type, begin to look to the working morphologist for 

 counsel and help iu their difficulties. 



These workers are merely separated for convenience' sake : a thorough zoologist finds 

 no time for embryology ; an embryologist is most grateful to the skilled and accom- 

 plished classifier ' who arranges the various members of each faunal group ready to 

 his hand. 



Each kind of labourer has the greatest need of the results brought out by the other : 

 the patient dissector waits for the treasiu'es supplied to him by the more mercurial 

 taxonomist ; whilst he, in turn, profits by the work of one to whom a single type may 

 serve for the labour of a year or more. Yet both are learning to look beneath the 

 surface of things, a growing knowledge of the types showing both that close kinship is 

 often marked by great difference in outward form, and that it is easy to be beguiled by 

 the external likeuess of forms — isomorphic, indeed, but far apart zoologically. Never- 

 theless, on the whole, the keen eye of the zoological expert seldom errs in the grouping 

 of forms, even by their outward characters alone : but there are types that will baffle 

 all that skill ; and then other coixnsel has to be called in. 



Embryology, however, does not exist as a handmaid to zoology ; its aims are higher 

 by far than that ; and as for the zoologists proper, they exist for the morphologists, and 

 not the morphologists for them. The familiar term " zygodactyle " for birds with a 

 certain form of foot, has been very useful ; and yet how much ignorance it may be made 

 to hide ! It seems to be something when one knows that a certain bird belongs to that 

 group ; and yet a Cuckoo, a Parrot, and a Woodpecker come none the nearer each other 

 zoologically by the possession of that kind of foot. 



SECOND SERIES. — ZOOLOGY, VOL. I. B 



