1 6 'DESCRIPTIONS OF PREPARATIONS. 



and upon it and upon each succeeding vertebra down to the sacrum a large, 

 as upon the ninth and eighth dorsal vertebra a small, metapophysis is 

 developed. A small anapophysis is also seen to take origin from the base 

 of its neural arch, and to be possessed by each succeeding vertebra up to 

 the antepenultimate lumbar. Several of the anterior, as also of the pos- 

 terior dorsal vertebrae, have low hypapophysial ridges developed subcen- 

 trally ; and longer ones possessing the character of spines are developed on 

 the three anterior lumbar vertebrae, in relation in the living animal with the 

 crura of the diaphragm. The Hedgehog, Erinaceus europaeus, and the Mole, 

 Talpa europea, have paired unanchylosed ossicles developed intervertebrally 

 in the same region, like caudal chevron-bones. The lumbar vertebrae as 

 wholes, and also most of their processes, increase in size from before back- 

 wards as far as the penultimate one ; the transverse processes point 

 obliquely forward, but form a more open angle with the long axis of the 

 column than they do in the Rat. Behind the lumbar vertebrae we have, 

 though not invariably, four vertebrae united to each other by anchylosis of 

 their centra, their transverse, and their articular processes ; and united to a 

 fifth vertebra by anchylosis of the lateral processes. These five vertebrae 

 may be taken as corresponding to the os sacrum of anthropotomy. The 

 two most anteriorly placed of these five vertebrae form by their transverse 

 processes a pouched-shaped or auricular articular surface for the ilium, the 

 posteriorly placed convex end of which is constituted by the transverse 

 process of the second and the two sides by that of the first. In the Beaver 

 the second vertebra contributes a relatively much smaller proportion to this 

 articular surface, and in the Rat and many other Rodents it scarcely con- 

 tributes anything. The third and fourth of these post-lumbar vertebrae do 

 not in any Rodent furnish any articular surface to the ilium. 



The four or five anterior caudal vertebrae have largely developed sub- 

 quadrate transverse processes, with their free angles, both anterior and 

 posterior, somewhat produced. From eight to ten more rudimentary 

 vertebrae follow upon these, the most posteriorly placed being merely bars 

 of bone, with dilated ends corresponding to the articular aspects of the 

 centra of other vertebrae. The caudal vertebrae of the Rabbit have no 

 chevron-bones as have those of the the long-tailed Rodents, and of many 

 other such animals from the Ichthyosauri to the Primates, with the excep- 

 tion of the Ungulata and the Proboscidea, which are allied in so many other 

 points to Rodents. 



