588 SHUFELDT—OS8TEOLOGY OF THE WOODPECKERS.  [0ct. 5, 
proximal portion of the large ‘stapedial fenestra’ is hidden in 
this view; but it scoops the falcate ‘extrastapedial’ beneath its 
thick outer or back part’’ (Zrans. Linn. Soc., read 1874, p. 10). 
Passing to the hyotdean apparatus of Colaptes, we are to observe 
that the epibranchials of the thyrohyals are exceedingly slender 
rods of bone, and have their extremities resting just within the 
posterior periphery of the right external nostril. 
In specimens before me the /ef/f epibranchial is several milli- 
metres longer than the right. From this point they lie along 
in the groove on top of the skull, and curving round behind the 
cranium, join similar-fashioned ceratobranchials at points about 
opposite the position of the vomer. ‘The ceratohyals are small and 
fuse together to form a delicate arrowhead-shaped bone, which 
articulates posteriorly with the long, single, highly ossified basi- 
branchial. ‘There is no urohyal. 
Other Pvc? have the epibranchials curl round the orbit as in the 
genus Picus (see Fig. 6). We are now in a position to make cer- 
tain comparisons with the skulls of other cz, comparing them 
with those structures we have just had under consideration in 
Colaptes, and first let us take up the skulls in certain species of 
Melanerfes. 
Melanerpes torquatus (Lewis’s Woodpecker) offers us some won- 
derfully interesting aifferences. It possesses a comparatively broad 
skull, with ample brain-case, which latter is externally rounded 
and smooth. In the frontal region it is rather broad between the 
superior orbital peripheries. The grooves for the ends of the hyoid 
are very shallow, barely perceptible, and then only occur no farther 
forward than the postfrontal region. At the cranio-facial hinge, 
which is directly transverse, the frontals very slightly roll over on 
the nasals and the premaxillary. This remarkable picine character 
is far more distinct in other genera. We find the interorbital 
septum absolutely entire in the adult, while a very ample quadri- 
form pars plana is seen, but a distinct os uncinatum does not 
appear to be present, and the angle where it occurs is not 
especially produced. 
Although the tympanic bulla are somewhat cowrie-shell shaped, 
they are by no means so conspicuously so as they are in Co/aptes 
and some other forms. The basipterygoidal processes are notably 
rudimentary, and hardly to be seen in some skulls of this species. 
Picine in their general pattern, the pterygoids show but a compara- 
