| OCR Text |
Show 894 DR. R. W. SHUFELDT ON THE OSTEOLOGY OF THE [Dec. 1, broader than in the Texan Nightjar, being rounded in front, but otherwise agreeing very well with that bird. In fact in all essential details, so far as the osseous structures at the base of the skull are concerned Phalanoptilus agrees with the same parts as shown by Professor Huxley in his figure of Caprimulgus europaus, in his memoir upon the Classification of Birds (P. Z. S. 1867), and I have reproduced that figure here in order to show their arrangement (fig. A, p. 893). To recall also this eminent biologist's observations upon the skull of the European Goatsucker, the following passages are quoted from the memoir in question ; he says, " The skull of Caprimulgus, though Fig. B. View of the palate without the pterygoid bones of Nyctibius jamaicensis. Seen from below (after Huxley). Letters as in former figures. it retains the general features of the Passerine cranium, departs from the typical Passerine structure still further than the Swifts, the body of the palatines having become exceedingly broad and flattened out, while the vomer is longer and narrower than in the Swifts or the typical Passerine birds. The expanded inner end of the slender and characteristically Passerine maxillo-palatines are quite distinct from the vomer and from one another. " Caprimulgus further presents a remarkable contrast to the Swifts and all the true Passeres in having well-developed basi-pterygoid processes. These are absent in AZgotheles nova-hollandia, the palate of which is intermediate between that of the Goatsuckers and that of the Swifts. Nyctibius closely resembles Caprimulgus, even to possessing the very peculiar division of each ramus of the mandible into two portions-the one of which is movable upon the other-pointed out in the latter genus by Nitzsch. But the slender anterior processes of the palatines are closely approximated in the middle line, instead of remaining widely separated, as in Caprimulgus and Trochilus ; and the maxillo-palatines are closely adherent to them and to the vomer, though a true anchylosis does not appear to have taken place" (fig. B). |
