102 SHUFELDT. [Vou. III. 
point this distinguished ornithologist and anatomist cites numer- 
ous species of Larks with bills in some as slender as a War- 
bler’s, to such a species as Rhamphocorys, where ‘it is exagger- 
ated to an extent that surpasses almost any Fringilline form.” ! 
I am inclined to think that we have no birds in our avifauna 
to which Ofocoris is especially closely related, and that as a 
species it has arisen from some Old World stock, and only sec- 
ondarily spread to this continent at a comparatively recent 
epoch. As will be observed from the figures in my memoirs, 
quoted above, the structures at the base of the skull in Ofocoris 
are strictly passerine in their arrangement; quite similar, for 
instance, as we find them in Azzhus, but by no means so deli- 
cately constructed; rather the reverse, we should say. 
In figures 22, 23, and 25 of the Plates to the present memoir 
I present views of the superior aspects of the skull from speci- 
mens of Habia melanocephala, Cyanocephalus cyanocephalus, and 
Piranga ludovicianus, respectively ; these drawings were made 
by me and here offered to the end that they might be compared 
with similar views of the skulls of other passerine birds, which 
have likewise been presented in the Plates, but described more 
in detail in the text; the three foregoing species mentioned 
belonging to forms which I have described in papers in the 
hands of my publishers, but not yet in print, and in other 
memoirs. Especial attention is invited to the form and marked 
capacity of the brain case in the Pifion Jay (Fig. 23), one of the 
Corvide, as compared with similar parts in such forms as the 
Tyrant Flycatchers (Figs. 18 and 19), or even such strictly pas- 
serine types as some of the Thrushes and Warblers (Figs. 4 and 
5). Then again, compare this feature in such a true Thrush as 
Myadestes with a Titmouse, as shown in figures I and 9 respect- 
ively. Further on in my final recapitulation it will be my aim to 
attempt to point out if possible the probable significance of such 
an evident character as this, and in the foregoing paragraphs 
I have already strongly hinted as to what my interpretation 
of it may be. That it is incontestable evidence of a perfection 
of organization in any vertebrate form, all the truths of paleon- 
tology, physiology, and recent investigations in morphology, go 
to sustain. 
But we will have nothing more to do with the osteology of the 
1 NewTon, A., Encyc. Brit., Art. “ Lark.” Vol. XIV., p. 316 (9th ed.). 
