History and Progress of Comparative Anatomy. 47 



mark is, that birds are void of kidneys and bladder, and that 

 in place of the former they have fleshy lobes {des charnures,') 

 resembling kidneys ; that all birds have not a crop for receiving 

 food before entering the gizzard ; that some have in place of 

 these organs a large and capacious gullet (gosier), named the 

 paunch (Therbiere) ; some have a hard fleshy callous gizzard ; 

 and others neither crop nor gizzard. In the males, he remarks 

 the testicles {les genitoires) are contained in the belly near the 

 kidneys ; the females have a thin delicate membranous matrix 

 (egg bed) above the intestines, with two cornua. 



His account of the osteology is elaborate. He remarks the ab- 

 sence of sutures in the cranium; but as he allows that they are oc- 

 casionally seen, it is not improbable that he alludes to young birds 

 in which they are still visible. The two bones which compose 

 the hyoid of quadrupeds, are situate in birds at the sides of the 

 tongue. He had recognised a greater number of the cervical ver- 

 tebras in Birds, than in the Mammalia; but as he allows them 

 to be twelve, it is probable that he had not dissected those o-e- 

 nera in which they are more numerous, as the swan, ostrich, and 

 stork. The dorsal vertebras he makes only six, which is inac- 

 curate, in so far as the most frequent number is seven, eight, 

 and nine. In fixing the number of ribs also at six on each side, 

 he shews that he had examined a small number of ornithologi- 

 cal skeletons only. The peculiarities of the sacral and iliac 

 bones he does not omit. But it is in the chest, he remarks, by 

 which he evidently means the sternum and its appendages, that 

 the greatest peculiarities are recognised. For besides giving a 

 large bone to support the muscles of the wings and protect the 

 lungs, and fixing the shoulder-blades firmly on the clavicles, na- 

 ture has given birds another additional bone, denominated in 

 French the spectacle-bone or forklike bone (la lunette or Jour- 

 chette). " Car communement," he continues, " on la met dessus 

 le nez en forme de lunette ; ou bien on le nomme le bruchet ; 

 car il prend per devant Testomach, et est conjoint au bout des 

 deux clavicules en Tendroit des epaules, et de Tautre cosle est 

 joint au corselet (sternum), c'est-a-dire, a Tos de la poistrine. 

 Car il est fait en maniere de fourchette.*' This is at least a cha- 

 racteristic account of the bifurcated bone. The coccyx which 

 he names cropion, he represents to consist of six separable por- 

 tions. They are most frequently seven or eight. 



