44 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



skulls, that differences of form should be expressed in figures 

 as well as in words. Several comparative anatomists, es- 

 pecially interested in one genus or species, have given tables 

 of skull measurements.^ But, unfortunately, they have not 

 all followed the same plan, and, consequently, their observa- 

 tions have lost much of their value. It appears, therefore, 

 that a definite method of craniometry is needed as much for 

 mammals in general as for man himself, and the object of 

 the present communication is to indicate such a method. 

 Those who are familiar with the excellent plan adopted by 

 Huxley,^ in his extensive and very valuable observations 

 upon the skull of the Canidse, may well object that any 

 other method is superfluous. So it would have been had 

 Huxley's scheme been universally adopted by morphologists, 

 including anthropologists. That it has not been so adopted 

 is evidenced by publications which have appeared since 

 1880, — the year in which Huxley's paper was given to the 

 scientific world, — and by the fact that anthropologists follow, 

 at the present time, a method very different from that pro- 

 posed and employed by Huxley. This is possibly because, 

 according to Huxley's plan, it was necessary, or at any rate 

 desirable, that the skull, to be measured, should be bisected 

 in order that a basicranial unit might be determined. Fur- 

 ther, the comparison of all measurements to one unit is not 

 always productive of the best results ; it is often better to 

 compare two diameters with each other rather than with a 

 third. For these reasons it seems possible to claim that 

 there is still room for a uniform method of craniometry 

 adapted to the Mammalia as a whole. And it appears that 

 there would be greater chance of its adoption by compara- 

 tive anatomists if it did not differ too widely from the 

 anthropological method. In the plan here suggested the 

 procedure of the anthropologist has been followed as closely 



1 For example : — A. Sanson, " Memoire sur la nouvelle determination d'un 

 type specifique de race chevaline," Jour, de VAnat. et de la Phys., t. v., 1868, 

 p. 246; W. Ellenberger and H. Baum, "Anatomic des Hundes," Berlin, 1891; 

 H. Jayne, "Mammalian Anatomy: Part I., The Skeleton of the Cat," 

 Philadelphia, 1898. 



3 "On the Cranial and Dental Characters of the Canidee," Proc. Zool. Soc. 

 Lond., 1880, p. 238. 



