178 He REPORT—1846. 
the bones 2,2, figs. 1 to 25; especially since the paroccipital is the most lateral” 
of the elements of the occipital bone, in the definite sense in which the term 
‘lateral’ is used in the precise and excellent anatomical nomenclature of 
Dr. Barclay. For the numerous syno- ; 
nyms borne by the elements of the oc- Fig. 1. 
cipital segment of the skull, the term 
‘supraoccipital’ (swpra-occipitale, Lat.) 
seemed to best agree with the truest de- 
scriptive phrase of the part, viz. ‘ occipital 
supérieur.’ The interparietal is no con- 
stant cranial element, nor is it a dismem- 
berment of one and the same bone of the 
skull. It is at best only the largest and 
most common of the accidentally interca- 
lated ‘ossa wormiana. Sometimes, for 
example, in the Cebus monkey, it is a 
dismemberment of the backwardly-pro- 
duced frontal bone: more frequently it is 
the detached upper angle of the supra- 
occipital. But by this term ‘ supraoccipi- 
tal,’ I signify the totality of the bone s (in 
figs. 1, 5, 18, 22, 23, 24, 25), confining 
the term interparietal to its superior and Dinerticuiated  epencerillin or meeemberia eel eet 
anterior apex when detached, or to the “"™™ °™ 07S: © Ne dees 
superior and posterior apex of the frontal, when it is in like manner detached 
and wedged between the parietal bones. The inapplicability of the term ‘in- 
terparietal’ to the whole of the supraoccipital is strongly manifested in those 
fishes, e.g. the carp and tench, in which the supraoccipital is withdrawn from 
between the parietals to the back part of the skull, leaving those bones to come 
into contact and unite by the normal sagittal suture on the mesial line of 
the vertex. Geoffroy’s error is of the same kind, and scarcely greater than 
Cuvier’s, where he applies the term ‘interparietal’ to the whole of the parietal 
bones in Birds*.. The supraoccipital thus defined can never be mistaken for 
the ‘sur-occipital’ of Geoffroy, who by this term signifies the elements called 
‘occipitaux externes’ by Cuvier. At the same time the term ‘sur-occipital’ is 
too near in sound to ‘supraoccipital,’ and too significant of the highest part of 
the occipital segment to be retained for elements, which, like the ‘ paroccipi- 
tals’ (fig. 1,4,4), are usually inferior in position to the supraoccipital. Geoffroy: 
moreover, is not consistent in his application of the term ‘sur-occipital.’ In 
his memoir on the skull of the crocodile in the ‘ Annales des Sciences’ for 
1824, he applies that term to a part of the bonet, the whole of which he calls 
‘exoccipital’ in his later memoir, on the skull of the crocodile, of 1833¢ ; 
whilst in the memoir illustrated by the skull of the Sea-perch (Serranus 
gigas) in the ‘ Annales des Sciences’ for 1825, the term ‘suroccipital’ is ap- 
plied to the whole of the bones described as ‘ occipitaux externes’ by Cuvier. 
I trust, therefore, to have shown the necessity for the definite name of 
‘ paroccipital’ (paroccipitale, Lat.) which is here proposed for the elements, 4, 
of the occipital segment of the cranium (figs. 1 and 5). The name has re- 
ference to the general homology of the bones in question, as ‘ parapophyses’ 
or transverse processes of the occipital vertebra. And if the purists who are 
distressed by such harmless hybrids as ‘mineralogy, ‘terminology’ and ‘mam- 
* Annales du Muséum, x. p. 363, pl. 27. 
T Pl. 16. fig. 5z+R. “ Plur-occipital formé du sur-occipital et de l’ex-occipital.” 
{} Mémoires de l’Acad. Royale des Sciences, t. xii. Atlas, p. 43. 
