1900. | SHUFELDT—OSTEOLOGY OF THE WOODPECKERS. 098 
mon with the Imperial Woodpecker (see Fig. 4). Imperfect as 
the skull of the individual of this latter species is that I have for 
éxamination, it yet presents us with a number of very important 
characters... Upon superior aspect, this skull has the general 
characters of the skull of a Pileated Woodpecker ; it differs, how- 
ever, in having the bones of the frontal region to some extent 
bulging over the broad superior base of the premaxillary (see Fig. 
4). Relatively the vault of the cranium in C. pileatus is higher 
. aan Sai ae e 
Fic. 4. (Upper one.) Right lateral aspect of the mandible of the Imperial 
Woodpecker. 
Fic. 5. (Lower one.) Superior view of the same bone and in outline. Both 
figures natural size and drawn by the author from the mandible belonging 
to the skull shown in figure 2. 
and more rounded than it is found to be in the Imperial Wood- 
pecker ; in other words, the brain-case, and consequently the con- 
tained cephalic mass, is larger in the first-mentioned species than 
it isin the last. I have not the skull of an Ivory-billed Wood- 
pecker at present for examination, but am inclined to believe that 
it will be found to resemble the skull we now have under considera- 
tion, and its chief points of difference with what we found in the 
skull of C. prleatus are seen to refer to the palatine bone. This 
1 The specimen belongs to the collections of the United States National 
Museum (No. 1464). It lacks the pterygoids and hyoidean arches, and I am 
inclined to believe that the vomer has also been lost. The collector, however, 
preserved the sclerotals of one eye, and it is remarkable to see how completely 
they are fused into one circlet of bone. 
