  In this paper we construct for a given arbitrary skew diagram A all
partitions nu with maximal principal hook lengths among all partitions with the
character [nu] appearing in the skew character [A]. Furthermore we show that
these are also partitions with minimal Durfee size. This we use to give the
maximal Durfee size for [nu] appearing in [A] for the cases when A decays into
two partitions and for some special cases of A. Also this gives conditions for
two skew diagrams to represent the same skew character.
