1900.) SHUFELDT—OSTEOLOGY OF THE WOODPECKERS. 587 
A very curious condition of the sclerotal plates of the eyeball 
exists in Co/apfes and all other American P7cz wherein I have exam- 
ined them. These plates very thoroughly fuse together, although 
in the nestling at the time it leaves the nest they are still separate. 
In the case of the sclerotals of a specimen of the big Imperial 
Woodpecker before me this fusion is so perfect that all the sutural 
traces among the plates have well-nigh disappeared entirely. Such 
a condition is not common among highly organized birds. 
Fic. 2. Superior view, natural size, of the skull of the Imperial Woodpecker 
(C. imperialis). Drawn by the author from specimen No. 1464 of the oste- 
ological collections of the United States National Museum. 
The present writer has not paid any very special attention to the 
bones of the ear in the Prez, but Parker has said of them for Ge- 
cinus viridis that ‘‘ The stapedial apex of the largely aborted 
second postoral arch has some peculiarities of importance. The 
true stapedial or periotic portion is rather large and roughly oval, 
the side toward the ‘ opisthotic’ bar separating the fenestra ovalis 
from the fenestra rotunda being straightest. 
‘The capitular portion of the arch, continuously ossified with 
the base, is the flattish ‘ medio-stapedial’; a bony rod from this 
bar runs down the anterior ‘ infrastapedial’ bar, bringing to mind 
the small bone in the ‘stapedius’ muscle of the mammal; it is its 
symmorph. This double ‘infrastapedial’ is new to me; it ends 
below in a spatulate stylohyal, which has a proximal ossicle just 
below the infrastapedial fenestra. The extrastapedial is falcate and 
broad-backed ; the ‘suprastapedial’ is small; and from it and from 
the proximal end of the extrastapedial a fibrous fan arises, which 
supplements the small ‘tubercular’ head of this facial rod. The 
PROC. AMER. PHILOS. SOC. XXXIXx. 164. MM. PRINTED DEC. 5, 1900. 
