448 Baron Cuvier on the Osteology of Reptiles, 



with wliich they unite, and effect the obliteration of the sii* 

 tures which distinguish than. It is thus that tlie parietal, in 

 the aduk, appeal's sometimes simple, sometimes double, and 

 even triple or quadruple, when we include the inter- parietals 

 which always run into union with it, &c.* But in examining 

 the animal at a period nearer its birth, these anomalies are 

 found to disappear ; and in the foetus itself, or, in general, up 

 to that period in which all the bones are as yet distinct, we 

 find a normal number, the same in every species, — with, as I 

 have just observed, some very rare exceptions. 



It would be a curious question to ascertain whether this 

 analogy is sustained in the other classes of the Vertebrata, and 

 whether the differences which, in this respect, they present, 

 depend solely upon the epochs at which their bones unite :— 

 whether Reptiles, for instance, which always preserve in their 

 cranium many more sutures than the mammiferous tribes, are 

 to be considered, in this respect, as Mammalia in a state ana- 

 logous to the foetal state ; — whether Birds, which in their in- 

 fancy have as many sutures as Reptiles, but which, when they 

 approach the adult state, have often fewer than the Mammi- 

 fera, are, on the contrary, to be considered in this respect as 

 Mammalia passing more rapidly from one state to the other, 

 and advancing still further with relation to this particular cir- 

 cumstance the union and coalition of their bones. 



M. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire has been among the first who 

 have entei-ed upon this beautiful problem ; and upon several 

 points he has been most successful. I have also treated of 

 it at various opportunities in my lectures ; and I have given on 

 those occasions in which the order of my publications have de- 

 manded it, some extracts derived from my researches upon 

 this interestmg subject f : it has, however, become the object 



* N.B. It is on account of this constancy with which the inter-parietals 

 unite at first with the parietals, before the latter join themselves to the oc- 

 cipital, that I now persist in assigning to them this appellation, which I had 

 long since given to them; and against which it does not appear to me that 

 the objections of several anatomists have been of a nature to entitle them 

 to prevail. 



-|- I do not pretend to contest with any one of the authors who have 

 ■written upon this subject the merit of the observations which they have 

 published : but it is my duty to protest against the affectation with which some 

 have cited, and still continue to cite, only my Lemons d" Anatomic, published 

 in 1800 by M. Dumeril, after my course of lectures in 1798; and to assume 

 the air of taking much pains to reform my opinions, after having them- 

 selves been witnesses to the innumerable preparations which have been made 

 by me since that time, and by which more than one of them (be it said with- 

 out reproach) have profited in their studies. They well knew that these 

 preparations were already a sort of publication on my part; and it would 

 perhaps have been just to have cited me from these latter, and not from 

 some first, essays, which could only be considered as the sketch of a great 

 plan. of 



