THE AMERICAN BISONS. 9 
the cranial fragment with its attached portion of horn-core is almost a 
repetition of the corresponding part of the skull of the buffalo. The base 
of the horn-core is situated five inches in a curved line outwards and for- 
wards, or two inches and a half in a straight line, in advance of the position 
of the occipito-parictal crest. The forehead is slightly more flat antero- 
posteriorly than in the buffalo, arising from the occipito-parietal crest being 
a little less below its level. The lateral margins of the inion are broken 
away in the specimen, but the remaining portion exhibits the same appear- 
ances in detail as the buffalo, though in an exaggerated degree correspond- 
ing to its much greater size. The base of the specimen is very much broken, 
but that which is preserved indicates the form to have been the same as in 
the last-mentioned animal. The occipital condyles are alike in both, and, 
at their anterior part, advance in a concave manner to the posterior muscular 
protuberances of the basilar process. Between the condyles and paramas- 
toid, a large deep fossa exists, having at its inner side the foramen condy- 
loideum. The foramen magnum occipitis is slightly wider than high, being 
two inches one line by one inch eleven lines. The basilar process in the 
fossil, at its posterior muscular protuberances, is four inches wide and two 
inches and a quarter at those joining the body of the sphenoid. The os 
tympanica has been large and inflated, as in the buffalo, and a portion of one 
glenoid articulation remaining in the specimen presents the same form as in 
the latter.” 
The additional measurements given by Dr. Leidy are as follows : — 
Breadth of forehead between the bases of the horn-cores, 15 inches, or 380 mm. 
Height of the inion from the upper edge of the occipital foramen, 54 inches, or 140 mm. 
Circumference of the horn-core at its base, 20} inches, or 520 mm. 
66 
« ten inches from its base, 174 inches, or 445 mm. 
This specimen is still in the museum of the Academy of Natural Sciences 
of Philadelphia. Through the kindness of the curators of the Museum I was 
enabled recently to examine the specimen at my leisure. I found the cir- 
cumference of the horn-core fourteen inches from the base (the point at 
which it is broken off) to be sixteen inches, or only four inches and a half less 
than at the base, and three and a half inches less than at ten inches from 
the base. Mr. Peale, in his description of the same specimen nearly three 
fourths of a century avo, expressed his belief that “the horn itself could not 
have been less than six feet in length,” and thought it “a reasonable con- 
