136 BIOLOGICAL LECTURES. 



With the following ten terms the differences lie merely in 

 the retention by the Germans of certain words which the 

 Americans regard as superfluous. In the list these words are 

 italicized : Calcar avis, Corpus callosum, Chiasma opticum, Nucleus 

 dentatus, Dura mater, Falx cerebri, Medulla oblongata, Pia 

 mater, Corpus striatum, Tentorium cerebelli. With the remain- 

 ing six terms the differences are more or less radical. 



CALCAR vs. calcar avis. Thirty years ago, in connec- 

 tion with the controversy as to the cerebral peculiarities of 

 man, the term hippocampus minor became familiar even to gen- 

 eral readers. Nevertheless, probably influenced in some degree 

 by Huxley's proposition to replace Qwri s posthippocampal and 

 Henle's occipitalis horizontalis by calcarina, 1 anatomists have 

 been more and more generally employing calcar avis, and this 

 is adopted by the German committee in preference also to 

 unguis and eminentia digitalis. The advantages of correlated 

 names for collocated parts are many and great, as illustrated 

 by hippocampus \major\ and fissura hippocampi ; by eminentia 

 collateralis and fissura collateralis. In the present case these 

 advantages would have been gained equally had Huxley adopted 

 Owen's posthippocampal for the fissure and proposed posthippo- 

 campus for the ental ridge corresponding thereto. Indeed, this 

 would have been in accordance with the general principle of 

 locative names, and learners would have been spared thereby 

 some effort of memory. In this, however, as in so many other 

 instances, it is now idle to speculate upon the consequences 

 of harmonious cooperation between the two leaders of English 

 anatomy at that period. Assuming that calcar avis has general 

 and decided preference over the other names enumerated, there 

 need be stated here only the grounds upon which calcar has 

 been unanimously adopted by four American committees and 

 by the three associations which they represent. 



Briefly, the adoption of calcar is a logical corollary of the 

 recommendation which is common to the reports of all four 

 American committees, viz., " Other things being equal, it is 



1 Pye-Smith wrote as follows nearly twenty years ago ('77) : " Of all the syno- 

 nyms of hippocampus minor, calcar avis is the most distinctive and brings it at 

 once into relation with the calcarine fissure." 



