336 REPORT—1846. 
forme and pisiforme of the carpus represent together the os calcis of the 
tarsus. With regard to the other bones there is no difficulty ; the cuboid 
(b) supports the two ulnar digits, iv, v, of the foot, as the unciform bone (w) 
does those of the hand: the ecto-cuneiform supports the digitus medius, iil, 
of the foot as the os magnum (m) does that of the hand: the meso-cunei- 
form supporting the toe ii is the homotype of the trapezoid supporting the 
finger 2, and the ento-cuneiform (ci?) is the homotype of the trapezium (¢). 
It is no unusual exception that of two essentially distinct bones in one 
segment being represented by a coalesced homotype—a single bone—in an- 
other segment, as in the explanation above given of the serial homology of 
the caleaneum. The scaphoides and astragalus in the tarsus of the lion are 
represented by the single scapho-lunar bone in the carpus. The seaphoid 
and a cuneiform bone in the tarsus of the sloth and megatherium are repre- 
sented by the single scapho-trapezium in the carpus. 
I have long entertained the opinion that an appreciation, vague and indi- 
stinet, perhaps, of certain serial homologies, may have been associated with, 
if it did not suggest the epithets “scapula of the head,” “femur of the head,” 
&c. applied to certain cranial bones by Oken and Spix. 
To Cuvier this language seemed little better than unintelligible and mystical 
jargon, and he always alludes to it with ill-disguised contempt*. It has beer 
commonly cited by those who have followed the great palzontologist in de- 
preciating the cranio-vertebral theory, as a sufficient instance, needing no 
comment, of the extravagances essentially inherent in such attempts to recog- 
nise and explain the fundamental pattern to which the modifications of the 
cranial bones are subordinated. And it must. be confessed that the expres- 
sions by which the philosophical anatomists of the school of Schelling have 
endeavoured to illustrate in the animal structures the transcendental idea of 
-*the repetition of the whole in every part,’ have operated most disadvan- 
tageously and discouragingly to the progress of calm and dispassionate 
inductive inquiry into that higher law or condition upon which the power 
of determining the special homologies of the bones of the skeleton depends. 
Nevertheless the utterances of gifted spirits to whom the common intellectual 
storehouse is indebted for such original and suggestive generalizations as those 
contained in the “ Program tiber die Bedeutung der Schadelknochen” are 
entitled to some, and we will hope to respectful consideration, even when 
they happen to be least intelligible or most counter to the conventional ex- 
pressions of the current anatomical knowledge of the day; nor will the at- 
tempt to detect their latent meaning be wholly unproductive. 
With regard, for example, to the term ‘scapula capitis’ applied by Oken 
to the tympanic bone in birds (fig. 23, 28), it is quite possible that some ap- 
preciation of its serial homology with ribs and other modifications of the pleur- 
apophysial element, besides that exhibited by the blade-bone, may have lain at 
the bottom of the expression. And, we may ask, whether the error here be not 
rather inthe mode of expressing the relationship than in the relationship itself? 
Had Oken, for example, said that the tympanic bone of the bird was a modified 
‘ pleurapophysis,’ or expressed by any other equivalent general term his idea of 
its standing in such general relation to its proper cranio-vertebral segment, his 
language would not only have been accurate, but might have been intel- 
* “ Quant 4 M. Oken—il déclare les piéces en question les parties écailleuses des temporaux, 
ou, selon son langage mystique, ‘la fourchette du membre supérieur de la téte.’ ””—Ossem. 
Foss. v. pt. ii. p. 75.—“ Cet humérus de la téte de M. Oken devient pour M. Spix le pubis 
de cette méme téte; ou, pour parler un langage intelligible, un des osselets de 1’ouie, 
‘savoir, le marteau.””—‘‘ M. Spix croit aussi qu’il répond a la partie écailleuse du temporal, 
quwil décore du titre d’iléon de la téte."—&c. Ib. pp. 85, 86. 
