ON THE OUTLOOK OF VERTEBRATE MORPHOLOGY. 87 



distinguished Zoologist of Jena, it must be frankly ad- 

 mitted that his present essay loses much of its force for 

 want of proper recognition of palaeontology. 



III. In Conclusion. 



It will, I trust, be sufficiently evident, from the 

 promise given by the two treatises afore-considered, and 

 the tendencies of contemporary investigations cited, that 

 the outlook in vertebrate morphology is rosy beyond 

 anticipation. During the period of the close of which 

 the former are so conspicuous a feature, that steady work 

 which tells most in the long run has been progressing on 

 all hands. The combined energies of Furbringer, 76 See- 

 bohm Tl and Gadow 78 have given us revised classifications 

 of birds. Both at home and in the New World the 

 remains of Dinosaurs of unexpected beauty, hideousness, 

 and structural aberration combined, have been unearthed ; 

 and the clue to the affinities of the anomalous " Enalio- 

 sauria " has been obtained. 81 Our American brethren have 

 dazzled us with a galaxy of Mammalian remains of 

 bewildering complexity, which, while they have materially 

 modified our conceptions of the inter-relationships and 

 elucidated the phylogeny of the Placentalia, show to us 

 that, beyond doubt, in Eocene times these mammals were 

 having their day, and branching out into innumerable 

 specialised varieties destined to near extinction. The Old 

 World has yielded us links in the anomalous giraffine 

 series of mammals. 8 - Steady work in the palaeontology 

 of fishes has largely cleared up the mystery of the " Placo- 

 dermi," 83 and, in correlation with that of Huxley 84 and 

 Boas 85 on the living Osteichthyes, has laid low 86 the 

 assumed sub-ordinal value of the Ganoidei. Advancing 

 investigation has so far demonstrated the enormity of the 

 structural gap between the higher fishes and the Marsi- 

 pobranchii, as to have justified their removal from the 

 truly piscine category ; 8T and the pineal eye, so recently 

 independently discovered by De Graaf 88 and Spencer, 89 

 the structural features of which in these animals have 



