1864. | Comparative Anatomy and Classification. 539 
examples Phallusia,* Anodon, Helix, and Sepia, are remarkably well 
adapted for displaying the organization of the groups to which they 
belong, and, in addition to a great number of typical illustrations 
taken from life, the student will find two little diagrams exhibiting, in 
asimple but striking manner, the distinctions between the general 
structure of the vertebrate and invertebrate types of the animal king- 
dom. In adopting, as he has done, the system of Cuvier, the author 
has displayed sound judgment, and, generally speaking, his additions 
and modifications, necessitated by the advances in zoological science, 
appear to be the best he could have made. We recommend this portion 
of his work to “ science teachers,” and to students who wish to base 
their knowledge upon a good foundation. For these purposes the 
language might have been simplified with advantage, but in no case is 
there a want of clearness, nor do we find in it any affectation of 
learning, although, as we have already said, the most important facts 
which have recently been contributed by the leading observers of the 
day, both at home and abroad, are included in his comprehensive 
review of the animal kingdom. To this retrospect the first six 
chapters of the work are exclusively devoted. 
In our notice of those Lectures in Professor Huxley’s work, in 
which the structure and development of the vertebrate skull and “ the 
theory of the vertebrate cranium” are treated of, it is not our inten- 
tion to attempt an analysis of the multitudinous details (many of which 
are of a most elaborate nature) therein discussed, but to confine our- 
selves to the consideration of some of the leading propositions laid 
down and conclusions arrived at. 
Since the year 1807, when Oken, in his “ Programm,” first an- 
nounced the remarkable hypothesis that the skull is but a peculiar 
modification of the vertebral column, the “vertebrate theory of the 
cranium” has more or less occupied the attention of many distinguished 
anatomists, and Spix, Bojanus, G. St. Hilaire, Carus, and Professor 
Owen, have published elaborate Memoirs, in which they have adopted 
the general conception of Oken, with more or less modification in-the 
details of his plan. 
The great reputation of the celebrated English anatomist, and the 
weight attached to his opinions, have induced many anatomists in this 
country to accept his views, without, perhaps, inquiring minutely into 
the data on which his conclusions are based. And in some of our 
anatomical text-books the nomenclature, and system of arrangement 
of the cranial bones into vertebrae, advocated by Owen, have been 
introduced, not without creating confusion, into the descriptions of 
the human cranium. There were, however, always a few anatomists 
who declined to give in their adhesion to the system of Professor 
Owen. Most prominent amongst these was Professor Goodsir, who, 
applying to the investigation of the subject the embryological 
researches of Von Baer, Rathke, Reichert, and Remak, pointed out, 
not only in his Lectures delivered in the University of Edinburgh, 
* The description of this form, and perhaps of one or two more, is rendered 
somewhat obscure through an apparently incorrect lettering of the earns 
VOL. I. ) 
