﻿OSTEOLOGY OF SARCOPS CALVTJS. 259 



I thought it possible that Professor J. B. Steere, of Ann Arbor, 

 Michigan, the well-known authority on the birds of the Philippines, might 

 have a skeleton of Goodfellowia, so I wrote to him and received the fol- 

 lowing reply : 



"I remember your kindness in looking over my manuscript of the Philippine 

 Birds, but would be glad under any circumstances to aid you in your study of 

 Sarcops, if I were able, but I am afraid I can be of little or no use. I never 

 saw Hartert's genus Goodfellouna. I had supposed that the range of distribu- 

 tion, of Sarcops pointed to its origin from Bornean or Celebes ancestors, though 

 the genus is wanting in Palawan which is so closely related to modern Borneo. 

 Though Sarcops is not a bird of long flights, it is so well distributed over the 

 eastern and southern Philippines that it must be a form of long standing there, 

 and long separation from its ancestral forms. I had always supposed, with no 

 good reason perhaps, but the ordinary method of arranging the genera near 

 each other in the books, that Mainatus or Eulabes was more closely allied to 

 Sarcops than anything else in the Philippines, though the two genera do not 

 overlap in distribution at all, I believe, Eulabes being found only in Palawan 

 in the Philippines, and Sarcops being found everywhere else in the Philippines 

 but in Palawan. The habits of the two genera are somewhat alike, as I 

 remember them. 



"The Filipinos have a curious story to account for the bald head of Sarcops. 

 As near as I can remember it, it runs as follows: 'Once Sarcops and the bush 

 cuckoo, Centropus, made a bet as to which could fly highest. As they rose above 

 the bushes the sun dazzled the eyes of the cuckoo and he dropped down again into 

 the tall grass, saying 'Tig-sup' ( down I go ) , while the Sarcops kept on up until 

 he struck the roof of heaven and knocked the hair off his head.' The Filipino 

 language has but one word for hair and feathers, and the bush cuckoo still calls, 

 and is called, Tig-sup (down I go) . I am sorry I can be of no assistance to you." 



OSTEOLOGY OF SARCOPS. 



Although possessing the general characters of the skeleton as they oc- 

 cur in the Passeres, we have no passerine bird in this country with which 

 Sarcops could with advantage osteologically be compared — that is, with 

 the expectation of showing near relationships. Were this representative 

 from the Philippines to be thus contrasted with an American species the 

 most interesting genera for the purpose would be such forms as the yellow- 

 headed blackbird (Xanthoceplialus xanthoceplialus) , with its allies the red- 

 wings (Agclaius), the orioles (Icterus), and the grackles (Quiscalus, 

 Megaquiscalus) , especially the first mentioned. Osteologically, these 

 birds have been described by me in several previous memoirs and papers, 

 and these will be referred to in the course of the present examination. 

 More remotely, or rather superficially, Sarcops may osteologically be 

 compared with various species of the several genera Pica, Cyanocitta, 

 Aphelocoma, Xanthoura, Perisoreus, Corvus, Nucifraga, Cyanocephalus, 

 St ii runs, SturiielJa, and Eupliagus, skeletons of all of which I have in 

 my private collection. 



