1891.] SAUROGNATHISM OF THE PICI. 125 



heavily with, which in time may have come to modify certain struc- 

 tures of the cranium, as has been pointed out by Garrod \ 



(7) It is quite characteristic of many of the skulls in the Pici that 

 some of the free margins of the cranial bones, during the growth of 

 the species, are prone to ossify by what m.ay be designated as a 

 " ragged border," and this will account for the minute granular islets 

 of bone which occur along the mesial margins of the palatines ; they 

 are the so-called " septo-maxillaries " of Parker, — but they really 

 belong to the palatines. We have found them to vaiy greatly in 

 number, and in position in the same species. They are likewise 

 adventitious ossifications, and they belong to the same category as 

 the "Wormian bones" of anthropotomy. 



(8) Finally, as to the nasal labyrinth, we find nothing especially 

 saurian beyond what we see in other highly specialized types of birds, 

 Parker has said in the article "Birds" of the 'Encyclopaedia 

 Britannica' (9th ed. p. 717), that " these birds are saurognathous in 

 other respects, e. g., their nasal labyrinth is unusually simple. The 

 * inferior turbinal,' which has three coils in Rhea and Tinamus, and 

 two in most birds, is in Gecinus merely bi-alate ; in lynx it makes less 

 than a single turn, whilst the alinasal turbinal of that bird has two 

 turns, and that of Gecinus one. Gecinus is in all respects the most 

 specialized, Picumnus the most embryonic, and lynx the most pas- 

 serine of the CeleomorphcB. Also, in Gecinus the nasal labyrinth is 

 most ossified, and in lynx least." 



This strikes us as rather pecuhar logic when arguing for the saurian 

 organization of certain cranial structures as seen in the Pici : especi- 

 ally when we come to recognize the relative position of Rhea in the 

 system, and the high position held by the Passeres. 



Indeed, we must believe that too close study of a single set of 

 characters stands in danger of making us blind to the significance of 

 the tout ensemble of the characters presented on the part of the 

 entire economy of the form examined. 



In his Linnean paper quoted above. Professor Parker says of 

 Picumnus minutus that " I have had to work out the parts of this 

 bird's palate from the fractured skull in a dry skin." His entire 

 knowledge of the structures of this interesting genus of birds probably 

 rested upon this examination. It is evident, then, what we most 

 need now in this direction is a full description of the entire structure 

 of several genera of the Pici, with the same for lyiix and Picumnus, 

 and these thoroughly compared with several of the GotingidcB and 

 FormicariidcB and allied forms. 



As I have already remarked on a foregoing page, I have recently 

 examined series of skeletons of many species of Woodpeckers found 

 in the United States. The results of these investigations have been 

 written out to form one of the chapters of my work upon the Osteo- 

 logy of Birds of this country. Two sections terminate the chapter 

 and they are herewith presented in advance of the publication for 

 which they were written. 



1 Coll. Sci. Memoirs, p. 117. 



