History and Progress of Comparative Anatomy. 45 



in young animals it is divided into lobes, yet that neither have 

 gall-bladder. 



The kidneys he mentions as large spongy organs, with the 

 ureters descending from them to the bladder, which he inflated 

 and filled, and found its capacity equal to that of a chopin. He 

 further represents it to be as large as that of the sea-frog or 

 devil-fish. The latter statement is another proof of the accu- 

 racy of Belon, and which shews that most of his observations 

 are derived from personal inspection. The devil-fish or angler 

 {Lopfmis piscatorius) is one of the few fishes which possess a 

 urinary bladder. 



He appears to have been particularly impressed with the de- 

 velopment of the nervous system in the dolphin, compared with 

 other inhabitants of the deep ; and that he regarded it as ap- 

 proaching in this respect also to the class of warm-blooded ani- 

 mals, must be inferred from the fact, that he represents the brain 

 and its ventricles and convolutions as similar to that of man. 

 He also states that there are seven pairs of nerves, much more 

 distinct than in the human subject, some of which proceed to 

 the nose, some to the eyes, some to the tongue, and others by 

 the lateral regions of the head into the ears. Deficient as this 

 description is, compared with the modern account, it is quite 

 equal to that of Vesalius ; and it shews, along with other circum- 

 stances, that Belon had studied the anatomy of the human frame, 

 as well as most of his contemporaries. , 



The osteology of the dolphin lie had an opportunity of study- 

 ing, in the skeleton of one which he found on the shore of the 

 Cimmerian Bosphorus. From this it appears that he recognized 

 the resemblance between the delphinic and human, that is, the 

 mammiferous skeleton, excepting the want of the bones of the 

 pelvic extremities, a fact verified by subsequent observation, 

 and forming one of the organic distinctive characters of the fa- 

 mily of cetaceous animals. He reckons 24 vertebrae, 12 ribs on 

 each side, clavicles, and short or false ribs and scapulae; adverts 

 to the shortness of the bones of the thoracic extremities, in 

 which he mentions an arm-bone, and radius and ulna, and ter- 

 minating in a hand or paw with five toes and articulations. He 

 remarks the round shape of the cranium, which, both in the dol- 

 phin and porpoise, he says, is similar in shape to the human era- 

 nivm, and has the same number of sutures ; and shews the ac- 



