580 SHUFELDT—OSTEOLOGY OF THE WOODPECKERS.  [0ct.5, 
kindly forwarded me skeletons of J/elanerpes erythrocephalus and 
MM. carolinus, and Herbert Brown, Esq., the well-known naturalist 
of Tucson, Ariz., has, among numerous similar favors, kindly given 
me the skeletons of a male and of a female JZelanerfes uropygialis. 
Of the genus Co/aptes I have a large assortment, from quarters too 
numerous to mention on this page. Mr. G. Frean Morcom, of 
Chicago, and Mr. F. Stephens have presented me with alcoholic 
specimens of Dryodates scalaris lucasanus, from Lower California. 
I command few or no foreign forms, but, in addition to much 
other literature upon them, I have a personal copy of Prof. W. K. 
Parker’s memoir ‘‘On the Morphology of the Skull in the Wood- 
peckers and Wrynecks’’ (1874). 
With respect to the Pred, authoritative writers and ornitholo- 
gists of all times seem to be of one opinion—that that family, 
taken in connection with the two others mentioned above, consti- 
tute a very distinct and natural group of birds with very evident 
passerine affinities. The American Ornithological Union con- 
siders this group to equal an order, the cz; while here I treat 
them as one of my suborders, which likewise is designated by the 
same name. 
Both Sundevall and Kessler recognized a separate group for the 
Woodpeckers (/2cz), while Huxley’s well-known characterization 
of them as his group, the Ce/eomorphe, is now too well compre- 
hended to render it necessary for me to reproduce it here (P. Z. S., 
1867, p. 467). At the time that that distinguished authority pro- 
mulgated the opinion to which we allude he believed that the 
vomers in the skulls of some species of Woodpeckers remained dis- 
tinct throughout life; and, further, saw the nearest affines of these 
birds in the Passeres (or his Coracomorphe). 
In the memoir of his, to which I have just alluded in a former 
paragraph, Prof. W. K. Parker wrote it as his opinion, in referring 
to the Woodpeckers as a group, that ‘‘ The fact is they are like early 
embryos of the Passerine, in their palatal region arrested at a 
most simple Lacertian stage, whilst in other respects they are meta- 
morphosed and specialized beyond any other kind of birds. As 
far as their upper face is concerned, their arrested ‘ maxillo-pala- 
tines,’ symmetrical ‘ vomers,’ ‘ septo-maxillaries’ and feebly devel- 
oped turbinal scrolls entitle them to a name which shall be a 
memorial of their Lacertian facial morphology. I therefore pro- 
pose to call them the ‘ Sawrognathe.’”’ 
