1900.] SHUFELDT—-OSTEOLOGY OF THE WOODPECKERS. 589 
tively reduced process on either one for muscular attachment, and 
when articulated zz s¢#w they are seen to touch in the median line. 
Either palatine has its internal and external laminz rather more 
curled downward as compared with the thin, horizontally flattened 
bones of Co/aptes. The postero-external angle in each develops a 
definite process, which is directed backward. Individuals vary 
with respect to the lengths of the palatine spurs, they being mark- 
edly longer in some than in others, but ¢hezr anterior ends are 
always free in this species. Inner and outer borders of the pala- 
tines are zof ragged, but very smooth and straight, inclining one to 
believe that the ossification along them is different from what I 
described for Co/aftes. A free turbinal is found in either rhinal 
chamber. The maxillo-palatines are very much reduced, and 
strikingly narrow transversely, while the vomer appears to be ab- 
sent. I examined seven specimens to satisfy myself of this latter 
fact. The posterior reduced ends of the hyoidean apparatus only 
reach up to the vault of the cranium; they are very elastic even 
in the long dried skeleton, and moreover they are flattened in the 
vertical direction. 
In the mandible the symphysis is relatively deeper than we found 
it in Colaptes, and the foramen in either ramus a little larger.’ 
Our Red-headed Woodpecker (JZ. evythrocephalus) essentially re- 
“peats what we have just described above for JZ. forguatus. In 
1879 I collected an old male of this species at Fort Fetterman, 
Wyo., and its skeleton is now at hand; since then several speci- 
mens have been presented me, and chiefly by Dr. Strode, of Berna- 
dotte, Ill., to whom my thanks are due for them. 
A vacuity may or may not exist in the interorbital septum of the 
Red-headed Woodpecker, and at the cranio-facial hinge the rolling 
forward of the frontals is not nearly so evident. The ends of the 
hyoid come higher up on the skull, reaching as far forward as the 
mid-point between the orbits. ‘The muscular process on either 
pterygoid is purely rudimentary, and I fail to find a lacrymal in 
any of this genus. No vomer is developed, but in a specimen 
before me the beak of the rostrum supports a curious hairlike spine 
extending forward in the middle line for several millimetres. In 
1] am not quite confident that the ramal vacuity we find in the jaws of Colap- 
tes, Melanerpes and the Imperial Woodpecker ccrresponds with the true ramal 
foramen as seen in other birds (Passere:). Careful comparisons rather incline 
me to think that it does not. 
