592 SHUFELDT—OSTEOLOGY OF THE WOODPECKERS.  [0ct.5, 
proximal end. ‘The interorbital septum exhibits a rather large 
subelliptical vacuity at its centre. Pars plana is large and thick 
through antero-posteriorly ; its lower outer angle is produced back- 
ward by a long os uncinatum. Rudimentary basipterygoidal pro- 
cesses are present, and the corresponding vestigeal apophyses are to 
be seen upon either pterygoid. Otherwise these latter are much as 
we find in the Pzcz generally, the hooks for muscular attachment being 
well produced. Mesially, between the palatine a large vomer is 
seen to be present ; it has the form of a spear-head, with its ante- 
rior angle produced forward as a delicate spine. ‘Turning to a 
palatine bone, we find it narrow and straight, and of nearly equal 
width throughout. Its postero-external angle is bluntly produced, 
while behind it makes the usual picine articulation with the ptery- 
goid of its own side. The palatine spur is shov?¢, freely pointed in 
front and appears more as an outwardly curled part of the palatine, 
lamina proper. It is curious in possessing a distinctly produced 
process upon its outer aspect near the middle. ‘This form of the 
palatine spur is quite different from that of any other Woodpecker 
that I have ever examined. Running forward from the apex of 
the interpalatine spine there is a ragged string of subossified tissue 
that is again anchored in front to the mesial border of the bone. 
In this structure we may find several islets, of an elongated form, of 
true bone. I consider them to be, as I do in other species already 
mentioned, detached parts of the prepalatine, which is but poorly 
ossified along the border in question. This imperfect mode of 
ossification is extended to the mesial subnaso-septal bar, which we 
here find to be composed of the same subosseous tissue containing 
elongated granules of true bone. Detached turbinals are found in 
the narial chambers of the Pileated Woodpecker, but these parts 
seem to depart but little from what has already been described for 
other picine types. 
There is a special character that should be noted in the skull of 
Ceophleus, and it is the vazsed osseous line that runs mesially down 
the column of the premaxillary. This character is well seen in 
the Imperial Woodpecker also, but is absent in representatives of 
the genus Colapfes and Aelanerpes. 
Our Pileated Woodpecker has a very strong mandible, of a form 
usually seen among birds of this group. Posteriorly the ramus is 
deep in the vertical direction, and the downwardly convexed bor- 
der below is here much roughened, a character it exhibits in com- 
—" 
