1865.] Paper "on Zoological Names" $c. 135 



tinguished from those of other mammals," &c. I never thought it 

 would be attributed to me that I wished it to be believed that every par- 

 ticular statement to which I did not attach the name of some other author 

 was my own original discovery. 



Little scope as there is in an abstract for entering into the literature of 

 the subject, a reference to the writings of an anatomist who has contributed 

 so much to advance our knowledge in the special department treated of in 

 my paper could not be altogether omitted. I therefore found it necessary 

 to give in a few words an epitome of the results of those writings. It is in 

 the outline I thus gave that I am acused of serious misrepresentation. 



Prof. Owen's first direct charge is contained in the following sentence : 



" It is time that the procedure be exposed and stigmatized which con- 

 sists in representing the homological knowledge and opinions of an author 

 by his definitions in a purely zoological work, and in suppressing all re- 

 ference to the descriptions and statements in the anatomical writings of the 

 same author, where his actual knowledge and opinions on the nature and 

 homology of parts are given, and where alone they can be expected to be 

 found. My present remarks refer to the published ' Abstract ' of Mr. 

 Flower's paper." 



To this I reply that my first and indeed only reference in the body of 

 my ' Abstract ' is not to any purely zoological work, but to Prof. Owen's 

 original detailed anatomical paper (Phil. Trans. 1837), to which he has 

 himself always referred as containing the amplest exposition of his views 

 upon the subject. 



It is next objected that, in quoting what seemed to me the pith and mar- 

 row of that memoir, I omitted following passage : 



" This commissure [viz. the commissure of the hippocampi in the Mar- 

 supialia] may nevertheless be regarded as representing, besides the fornix, 

 the rudimental commencement of the corpus callosum." 



There certainly appeared to me little necessity for the formal citation of 

 a single passage like this, which, if it can be construed into a statement that 

 the corpus callosum is present in the marsupial animals, is perfectly incon- 

 sistent with the whole of the remainder of Prof. Owen's memoir, nay 

 further, is immediately contradicted by the context, the whole paragraph 

 standing thus in the original. 



" This commissure may nevertheless be regarded as representing, besides 

 the fornix, the rudimental commencement of the corpus callosum ; out this 

 determination does not invalidate the fact that the great commissure which 

 unites the supraventricular masses of the hemispheres in the Beaver, and 

 all other placentally developed Mammalia, and which exists in addition to 

 the hippocampal commissure, is wanting in the brain of the Wombat ; and as 

 the same deficiency exists in the brain of the Great and Bush Kangaroos, 

 the Vulpine Phalanger, the Ursine and Manges Dasyure, and the Virginian 

 Opossum, it is most probably characteristic of the marsupial division of 

 Mammalia." ' In the same page of the memoir the following occurs : 



