1879. ] Zoology. 7 43 
morphological features of those living forms. A so modified La- 
marckian philosophy = animal differentiation seems reasonable, 
and a most overwhelming mass of evidence exists in its favor ; 
varieties, species, genera, etc., presenting only the milestones, as 
evolution by means of knowable and discoverable causes origin- 
ating in the mechanical and dynamical conditions which surround 
living organisms, and by which they are related to the cosmos. 
This, however, goes without saying, that types may not be more 
or less persistent from the persistence of a uniformity of condi- 
tions.— Fohn A. Ryder. 
Some New POINTS IN THE Eep a= OF THE TONGUES OF 
 WooDPECKERS.— The tongue of the woodpecker is -i flat, 
horny, and at its end armed with a abe of ae i 
short barbs. By means of a peculiar mechan- 
ism it can be suddenly pushed out, so as to reach 
far beyond the point of the bill. The two car- 
pas ee appendices to the hyoid bone, known 
th ” are curved into wide arches, 
cath horn making a loop down the neck, and 
thence bending upwards, sliding around the 
culiar muscular arrangement of the sheaths, in 
which the horns slide, they can be retracted 
‘down on the occiput, and will then work as 
springs on the base of the tongue, forcing it out 
with great velocity. These peculiarities in the 
construction of the tongues of woodpeckers 
have long been known, and the above descrip- 
tion is pretty nearly the same as that given by 
Claus in his “ Grundzüge der Zoologie.” 
Some years ago I was engaged in Sweden, in 
preparing zootomical specimens, among which The skuit of Gecin- 
were some woodpeckers’ heads, viz: one Picus #s viridis L. „Showing ~ 
Pieced two P. martius and more than twenty re ssymmetrical po: po: 
. viridis. . 
tg eg ingore) oat 
ir tension 
ad 
In every one of them I noticed a peculiar | through naoi fai 
asymmetric arrangement of the horns, which, tothe end of the cav 
upon reaching the upper part-of the skull, met ity covered by the in- 
in a broad groove of its surface, and following the termaxittare. 
groove, are turned towards the right side of F the forehead, running 
down between the right orbit and the crest, which is raised 
along the median line of the lower part of the ‘forehead, slightly 
inclined towards the right side. 
In P. tridactylus aud P. martius I found that the horns end 
above the base of the forehead. But in P. viridis they extend = | 
through the nasal fossa into the cavity, pane is covered by the- 
