532 DR. R. W. SHUFELDT ON THE COMPARATIVE OSTEOLOGY [ Apr. 27, 
distal ends of the latter run out to hair-like proportions, which 
in life curve over the top of the skull, being harboured in the 
groove there formed for their reception. This admits of very 
considerable extension on the part of the tongue. The cerato- 
branchial elements of the thyro-hyals are very long, each being 
about half the length, or rather less, than the corresponding 
epibranchial. They are more or less straight, and take no part 
in the curvature of the posterior ending of this lingual apparatus. 
The basihyal is very short, and possesses, distally, a circular tip 
for articulation with the glossohyal. A slender, very short, 
straight wrohyal is present; the heads of the ceratobranchials 
articulating, one on either side, at the junction of the basi- and 
urohyal. 
A. longirostris has the skeletal parts of its tongue as they exist 
in A. magna. The general structure is the same among most of 
the Meliphagide; but in that family there exists no marked 
elongation of either the glossohyal anteriorly or of the thyro- 
hyals behind. In them the lingual apparatus is typically 
passerine. Exceptions to this rule, however, exist, and in such 
long-billed forms as Acanthorhynchus and some few others the 
skeleton of the tongue agrees more or less with what has just 
been described for Arachnothera. 
Glancing for the moment at the skulls of other species repre- 
senting other families at hand, it is to be noted in the skull of 
such a bird as Diglossa baritula that in the case of the interorbital 
septum it is almost entirely absorbed, a very thin and extremely 
narrow piece of bone simply spanning its centre, and the 
minutest possible spanlet below is just sufficient to individualize 
the two foramina rotunda. The anterior wall of the brain-case 
immediately above where these two striplets of bone join is 
entirely absent except a very narrow strip just within the orbital 
borders. Its occipital condyle is barely any larger than is to be 
found in Z'rochilus, and its sphenoidal rostrum is much com- 
pressed from side to side. Apteriorly, the rhinal chamber is very 
poorly off for bony protection, inasmuch as the elliptical external 
narial apertures are very large for the size of the beak: there is 
not a vestige of an internasal septum, while the palatal processes 
of the premaxillary almost require a lens to see them at all. In 
this species the ramal vacuities of the mandible are larger than 
we find them in dArachnothera, although the latter is a bird 
double its size. 
Cinnyris chalybews presents some interesting cranial characters 
of its own, for here we find the nasal bones reduced to their very 
minimum proportions; the external narial openings are large, 
being barely separated above by the culmen. Pars plane are 
much reduced in size, and the fronto-interorbital area on the 
superior aspect of the skull of this species is notably narrow 
transversely. Its mandible is feebly constructed, and the whole 
beak considerably decurved. 
