LOSS 2 IAIN Sb ae) DI g & 953 
TEETAN, TEETING, Orkney and Shetland names for the 
TITLARK. 
TEETH are so generally possessed by Vertebrata as naturally to 
induce the supposition that the older Birds must have had them, 
and many anatomists had been looking out for their traces. 
Already in 1821 Etienne Geoffroy St.-Hilaire announced the dis- 
covery, on the edges of the mandible and premaxilla in embryos of 
Palxornis torquatus, of papille, rich in blood-vessels and nerves and 
containing globular bodies, which he likened to dental germs, His 
son, Isidore, and Cuvier thought that these “ germs” became sup- 
pressed by the later development of the horny sheath of the bill. 
In 1860 Blanchard (Comptes Rendus, 1. pp. 540-542) made micro- 
scopical investigations on Cacatwa and Melopsitiucus, and described 
plates of dentine, sent out from the edge of the underlying bone 
and partly surrounding the papille, which last were directly con- 
nected with the periosteum. Subsequently Prof. W. Marshall 
(of. Thier-reich, Vogel, i. p. 499) examined a nestling of Nymphicus and 
found clusters of calcareous deposit in the papille of the still carti- 
laginous mandible. He observed similar papille in an embryo of 
Aptenodytes, and his attention was drawn to a longitudinal groove ex- 
tending along the edges of both the upper and lower jaw in the adult. 
Dr. M. Braun (Arb. Zool. Inst. Wiirzburg, 1879, pp. 161-204, pls. viii. 
ix.) described and figured similar papillee in Melopsittacus, explaining 
the so-called plates of dentine as calcified horn, and comparing the 
papillz themselves with the horny serrations on the bill of the 
Anseres. In 1880 Dr. Paul Fraisse (SB. Phys. Med. Verh. Wiire- 
burg, Xv. pp. ll.-ix.) re-examined these papille, and concluded that 
they were but cutaneous outgrowths, projecting into the super 
imposed horny layers; which, being situated between the Malpighian 
layer and the periosteum, became connected with the latter, the 
capsule of supposed dentine consisting of peculiarly-modified and 
occasionally calcified cells of the horny layer. ‘Thus they bear a 
striking but only a superficial resemblance to the germs of Teeth. 
After all, then, Dr. Finsch’s practical suggestion (Die Papageien, 
p. 138) is right, and these papille only ensure the firmer connexion 
and better nourishment of the thick horny beak. They can be 
easily seen by macerating a Parrot’s beak and tearing off the cover- 
ing, and are comparable with the long cutaneous papille which 
extend into the hoof of a horse. They occur numerously only in 
Psiitact and to a lesser degree in Anseres, but not in Latitx, Galline, 
Columbx, Accipitres or Corvidx, though present in the form of a 
single long and soft projection at the tip of the pramaxilla and 
mandible of many Birds with strong and hooked beaks. 
The total absence of dental germs in all recent Birds is of 
course no proof that their ancestors did not possess such organs, 
