90 Remarks on Prof. Huxley's 



though I have made a special study of some parts at least of 

 the osteology of birds for the greater part of my life ; and I have 

 not had at my disposal anything like the rich store of material 

 to work upon which he has enjoyed. It may, therefore, seem 

 very presumptuous in me to declare the divergence of my 

 opinion from that of an anatomist so justly entitled to respect; 

 but I must confess that, agreeing on the whole with many of 

 the results at which he has arrived, it is with special reference 

 to the supposed importance of these palatal characters that I 

 am most inclined to differ from him. 



The opinion has before been more than once laid down in 

 this Journal, that a scheme of classification, composed solely 

 with reference to one character, will never lead us to a true 

 compreheasiou of the system of Nature. On one occasion this 

 opinion was put forth with special allusion to the proposed 

 classification of Dr. Cornay, of Rochefort, though in the passage 

 to which I refer ('Ibis,' 1860, p. 325), that gentleman's name 

 was not mentioned — a classification entirely based, as Prof. 

 Huxley's chiefly is, on the modification of the palatal struc- 

 ture"^. It is, perhaps, significant that, when this classification 

 was fully published, Dr. Hartlaub made on it some remarks which, 

 without occupying space by here translating them, are exactly in 

 accordance with the opinion just above enunciated, while he 

 termed Dr. Cornay's attempt " unphilosophical and one-sided " 

 (Bericht, u. s. w. 1847, pp. 2-5). Now I am not going so far 



* I believe I had the pleasure of first calling Prof. Huxley's attention to 

 the researches of this gentleman ; but I myself having become oblivious of 

 them, I was unable to do so until after the publication of the paper 1 am 

 now criticising. Dr. Cornay made known the results of his investigations 

 to the French Academy of Sciences, .Tanuary loth, 1844. An abstract of 

 his communication is to be found in ' L'Institut ' for January 17th of that 

 year (vol. xii. p. 21), which is briefly mentioned by Prof. Wagner in the 

 volume of ' Reports on Zoology ' published by the Ray Society (p. 278). 

 Another extract fi'om it is contained in the ' Comptes Rendus ' for the 

 same year (vol. xviii. pp. 94, 95) ; and the paper itself was published in 

 full, three years later, in the ' Revue Zoologique ' for 1847 (pp. 360-3G9), 

 the first portion having, it is there said, already appeared in the ' Journal 

 des Decouvertes ' (vol. i. p. 250). Dr. Cornay also seems to have 

 addressed a "P/'o/e^" on the same subject to the French Academy, 

 January 24th, 1842 (R. Z. 1842, p. 14). 



