Zoological Society. 445 
Dr. Melville totally dissented from that author, and with regard to 
the ‘ paroccipital,’ he stated that Rathké had proved it by tracing 
the development of the bones of the skull to be a mere dismember- 
ment of the petrosal. After eulogising the labours of Miller, Rathké, 
Geoffroy, and other foreign authors, by whom the truths‘of that sci- 
ence—sneered at in this country as ‘ Philosophical Anatomy ’—had 
been discovered and established, Dr. Melville awarded praise to 
Professor Owen for having first introduced them in a systematic form 
in an English work, the value of which however was lessened by many 
grave errors, which it was important to have corrected, and to effect 
which was the chief object of his present communication. The 
second part of this communication would be ready for the next 
Meeting. 
The Chairman proposed a vote of thanks for Dr. Melville’s paper 
on the Ideal Vertebra, and called upon Professor Owen to reply, when 
the Professor inquired whether Dr. Melville’s paper had been re- 
ceived ; and the Secretary having stated that the paper had not been 
received, as had been expected before the preparation of the Agenda, 
Professor Owen remarked that the absence of such a document, 
vouching for the precise nature and terms of Dr. Melville’s present 
views, and the actual grounds of his objections, rendered him ayerse 
to entering upon a refutation of those that had just been urged vivd 
voce. So far, however, as the author’s views were represented by 
the diagrams exhibited, he thought it due to the Meeting to offer a 
few brief remarks on these. 
Professor Owen then observed, hae if the modification of the ideal 
vertebra now proposed had originated, as it might seem to those 
present who were unacquainted with his work ‘ On the Vertebrate 
Archetype,’ from the discovery of new facts by Dr. Melville, of which 
Professor Owen had not had cognizance when he formed his con- 
clusions on the nature of the typical vertebra, there might then have 
been a primd facie probability of his idea needing some modification 
in conformity with such alleged new facts. With the exception, 
however, of the coexistence in nature of a second hemal arch in- 
ternal to the costo-sternal arch, he had long been cognizant of the 
parts called by Dr. Melville ‘ heemal arches’ and ‘ hemapophyses’ in 
the cervical and dorsal regions of the species cited. Professor Owen 
then inquired whether the lizard at the British Museum referred to 
by Dr. Melville actually exhibited the perforated haemal arch beneath 
the bodies of the cervical and dorsal vertebree, as shown in the dia- 
gram, and Dr. Melville replied that it did not, but explained that the 
subvertebral processes in the trunk being serially homologous with 
the perforated hzmal arches in the tail, he was justified i in intro- 
ducing such arch along with the costo-sternal arch in the diagram. 
Professor Owen then resumed, that the main question turned upon 
a difference of interpretation of known facts, and stated that even had 
the structures adduced by Dr. Melville in support of his views been 
new, it would not therefore follow that his interpretation of them 
was the true one. 
All those structures had, however, been described by Professor 
