Bibliographical Notices. 189 



strictly regarded in such a sense throughout his forthcoming, labours 

 among the remaining classes of Vertebrata. " The great aim of the 

 philosophical osteologist is to determine by natural characters, the 

 natural groups of bones of which a vertebrate skeleton typically 

 consists ; and next, the relations of individual simple bones to each 

 other in those primary groups, and to define the general serial and 

 special homologies of each bone throughout the Vertebrate series. 

 By general homology I mean the relation in which a bone stands to 

 the primary segment of the skeleton of which it is a part ; thus, 

 when the basi-occipital bone (basilar process of the os occipitis in 

 anthropotomy) is said to be the centrum or body of the occipital or 

 posterior cranial vertebra, its general homology is enunciated. When 

 it is said to repeat in its vertebra, or to answer to the basi-sphenoid 

 in the parietal vertebra, or to the body or centrum in the atlas, den- 

 tata, or any other of the vertebral segments of the skeleton, its serial 

 homology is indicated ; when the essential correspondence of the 

 basilar process of the occipital bone in Man with the distinct bone 

 called 'basi-occipital' in a Crocodile or Fish is shown, its special ho- 

 mology is determined." With the above clear and exact formula of 

 the object and the course to be pursued in its attainment, we must 

 pause, for the space allotted in this Journal will not admit of our 

 entering into detail ; and, as a sufficient plea for our silence, will 

 simply remind the reader of what has been observed by Oken, to 

 whom is unquestionably due the honour of having first announced in 

 an essay, published in 1807, and entitled ' Ueber die Bedeutung der 

 Schadelknochen,' the relations of identity existing between the cra- 

 nial bones and the other segments of the vertebral column : " It is bond 

 fide," says he, " remarkable what it costs in order to bring but one 

 problem of philosophical anatomy into a pure state, or that of solu- 

 tion. He who has not been engaged in such a task remains without 

 conception of its difficulties. Without knowing the what, how and 

 why, one may stand not for hours nor days, but weeks, before a 

 Fish's skull, and vacantly stare at its calcareo-stalactitic forms." 

 Now, in the work of Prof. Owen, the diligent reader alone will be 

 in a capacity to appreciate the force of the above quotation; when, 

 after having worked his way, and this from the striking precision 

 of our author's language, he will effect with pleasure instead of toil 

 to himself, and, if resident in London, availed himself of the op- 

 portunity of comparing and testing the text by skeletons of fish now 

 mounted and labelled with appropriate catalogues of the homologi- 

 cal terms in the College of Surgeons' Museum, he next turns to the 

 table of synonyms of the bones of the head of Fishes, according 

 to their special homologies, at pp. 158 — 162, and in the contrast 

 of our countryman's nomenclature with those of prior zootomists, 

 such as the great Cuvier, Geoflfroy, Bojanus, Spix, Meckel, Carus, 

 and others, there discerns the great and priceless boon that has been 

 conferred upon subsequent inquirers by this unravelling of a false, 

 because in many respects unmeaning and artificial terminology, and 

 the substitution in its place by the Professor of scientific words 

 intelligible from their appositely compound or connotative character. 



