PREFACE. 



The present work contains, substantially, the Lectures which 

 I delivered, in the spring of 1863, at the Royal College of 

 Surgeons of England, in discharge of my duty as Hunterian 

 Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology to the 

 College. I purpose, should I continue to hold that honourable 

 office, to publish the substance of subsequent courses in a 

 similar manner ; and by that process to bring out, eventually, 

 a comprehensive, though condensed, systematic work on Com- 

 parative Anatomy. In intention, therefore, the volume now 

 before the reader is the first of a series, to be followed in 

 due order by a second, " On Man and the other Primates ;" a 

 third, on the remaining Mammalia, and so on. Whether this 

 intention will ever be fully carried out depends on so many 

 contingencies, however, that I have thought it the better 

 course to let each volume remain, in form, independent of 

 the rest. 



I have much pleasure in expressing my obligations to the 

 President and Council of the Royal College of Surgeons for the 

 unrestricted access which I have enjoyed to the abundant 

 anatomical treasures contained in their Museum and its store- 

 rooms, to which my Lectures are indebted for many of their 

 most instructive illustrations. 



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