Baron Cuvier on the~Osteology of Beptiles. 44.? 



selves ; all which I found easily explained on the principles here 

 established of two radiations, when connected with the various 

 other considerations to which it is necessary to refer when 

 employing instruments of this description : but I do not con- 

 ceive it necessary to enter into any further details. 



LXXIII. On the Osteology of Reptiles, and on the Geological 

 Position of their Fossil Remains. By M. Le Baron G. Cu- 

 vier*. 



MY work has necessarily resolved itself into a sort of trea- 

 tise on comparative osteology, since I have been con- 

 stantly obliged to bring under consideration, together with 

 fossil bones, those of living species ; nor could I have detected 

 the differences which exist among them, otherwise than by 

 employing figures and detailed descriptions for this purpose : 

 but every labour devoted to the ascertainment of the diffe- 

 rences in the productions of nature leads to the developement 

 of their particular relations ; and, indeed, the reader will have 

 had no difficulty in perceiving that, notwithstanding the so 

 greatly varied proportions which belong to these bones, and 

 notwithstanding the exterior forms (often of so extraordinary 

 a description) which hence result, there exists nevertheless, 

 throughout the mammiferous tribes, a sort of common or uni- 

 versaf plan, a composition nearly the same, and of a nature 

 to enable us always to recognise each bone, by means of its 

 use and position, through the whole of the metamorphoses un- 

 der which it passes, and in spite of the difficulty presented in 

 this recognition by the enlargements or diminutions of size 

 which it may have undergone. Thus, in the figures of the 

 heads which we have given, may be traced, from Man to the 

 Whale, the frontal bones, the parietal bones, the bones of the 



nose, in a word, the whole of the parts constituting of the 



cranium and face, with very few exceptions ; such as the 

 absence of the lachrymal bones in some species, and per- 

 haps the inter-parietal in others. The remaining apparent 

 differences in the number of the bones arise in general from 

 the greater or less promptitude, or perfection of continuity, 



• From the author's Rccherches sitr Ics Osscmens Fossifcs, vol. v. part 2. 

 — We hope to present our readers, in continuation of this article (which con- 

 tains the preliminary observations on the fossil remains of reptiles,) with a 

 series of translations from the same work, respecting the Saurian reptiles, 

 illustrated with engravings. M. ("uvier's Memoirs on the Osteology ot 

 livin" and fossil Llepliunts, (another interesting branch of Ins work,) h;ive 

 alrca'dy been given in the Fliilosopliical Magazine, vols, xxvi.— xxx.— Kbit. 



with 



