594 SHUFELDT—OSTEOLOGY OF THE WOODPECKERS.  [0cet. 5, 
element is most remarkably modified, for, in the first place, it is 
comparatively very narrow, being nearly of an equal width through- 
out, while its postero-external angle is completely rounded off. 
Then, again, the palatine spur starts from the palatine proper (at 
the usual site), first as a delicate, half-turned whorl of bone, which 
is extended avrect/y forward as a fine osseous thread fully two centi- 
metres long. The anterior end of this latter codssifies with the 
mesial margin of the prepalatine, satisfying me of the fact that it 
is nothing more than a semi-detached part of the palatine, it being 
ossified with it at both extremities. 
Plenty of skeletons of the several species of the genus Sphyrapicus 
are to be found in my private cabinets, and when we come to study 
the skull and associated parts of one of these peculiar Woodpeckers 
we are met by a number of characters not seen in the picine skulls 
already considered above. Viewed upon superior aspect, the cra- 
nium of .S. ¢hyroddeus is broad, rounded and smooth, calling to mind 
these parts as they appear in any small, ordinary passerine bird. 
The denting caused by the capital feather quills is only seen faintly 
in the fore part of the frontal region, which in these birds is very 
broad between the orbits. This breadth is extended to the base of 
the premaxillary, and this broad base runs quite abruptly to the 
apex of the upper mandible. This part of the skull is also much 
compressed vertically, causing the external narial apertures to ap- 
pear quite slit-like. To some degree the frontals bulge over the 
premaxillary about as much in comparison as they do in the Impe- 
rial Woodpecker. Seen laterally, this skull presents us with a 
large pars plana, but apparently no os uncinatum. Internally the 
pars plana curves well backward, while on the other hand the an- 
terior wall of the brain-case curves correspondingly forward. This 
all very much reduces the size and extent of the interorbital septum 
proper, which is here unpierced by any fenestra, The morphology 
of the turbinals is practically the same as in other cz already 
considered, and a large free turbinal exists in the species of this 
genus. Either jugal-bar is short, straight and slender, articulating 
in the usual picine fashion with its quadrate behind. And _ this 
last-named element is strictly upon the Woodpecker model, while 
in the case of the pterygoid, its ‘‘snag’’ for muscular attachment is 
very long, and the palatine heads of these bones do not meet when 
articulated zz sz#u. Further, the mesopterygoid does not reach as 
far forward as the palatine spur of the palatine of the corresponding 
side. 
