450 Baron Cuvier on the Osteologi/ of Reptiles, 



from facts by so great a distance, applications very different 

 from the above, and even much varied among themselves. 



Accordingly we find, since 1811, that M. Meckel (in his 

 Materials for Comparative Anatomij, vol. ii. paper 2, p. 78) 

 appropriates the ethmoid for the body of a vertebra, of which 

 the frontals would form the annular part; and represents the 

 temporals as another vertebra, of which the body would be 

 divided into two parts {les rockers) by the forced introduction 

 of the body of a third (the os basilare*). 



The ethmoidal vertebra has been since adopted as a fourth, 

 and added, under the n£.me of olfactive vertebra, to the three 

 established by M. Oken, by M. Bojanus in 1818, in the 3d 

 number of the Isis, and, in 1821, in the Par ergon of his large 

 and beautiful work on the anatomy of the Tortoise. 



M. Spix, in his great work on the composition of the head, 

 entitled Ceplialogenesis, and published in 1815, holds to the 

 division of the three vertebrae of the cranium, but departs 

 widelv from the views of M, Oken relative to the bones of the 

 face. 



Representing to himself the os hyoides, the scapula, and 

 the socket, with the extremities attached, as three circles of 

 pieces of a similar nature, he re-discovers them in the face, 

 attached in the same manner to the three vertebrae of the cra- 

 nium. The bones which compose the nose represent to him 

 the hyoidal and laryngial apparatus f, and those of the two 

 maxillae the two ordinary extremities, but with a distribution 

 of relations quite different from that of M. Oken J. 



It 

 but here the oscarre serves as an os iUium, as it had before served, in the 

 superior maxilla, to represent the omoplate. In what follows, tlie real 

 omoplate is considered as nothing else than the amalgamation of ribs, 

 which would otherwise have been the appendices of the five last cervical 

 vertebrce. 



The OS styloides is the sacrum, and forms with the os hyoides a cavity 

 for the reception of the aliments, another being in like manner appropri- 

 ated for their expulsion ; and the mouth is to the abdomen what the nose 

 is to the thorax. The lips are the instruments of touch proper to the head, 

 as the fingers are those of the trunk. 



* The zygomatic apophysis of the temporal bone would form the arti- 

 cular or oblique apophysis of this third vertebra ; the os styloides, its trans- 

 verse apophysis or rib; and the os hyoides, its sternum. 



+ The OS planum represents, according to these definitions, the cricoides ; 

 the cribriform plate, with the crista galli, the arythenoidcs ; the superior 

 nasal cavities, the trachea; the inferior, the bronchise; the os unguis 

 corresponds to the thyroides ; and the caruncula lachrymalis, to the thymus; 

 the bones of the palate, to the body and cornua of the os hyoides. 



\ The bones of the nose answer to the sternum ; its cartilages to the 

 xyphoides : the omoplate corresponds to what I call the posterior frontal ; 

 the clavicle to the os malae. The shelly temporal is analogous to the 

 OS illium ; the small bones of the ear represent the pubis ; the cradle of the 



tympanum 



