392 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 



brought into contact with the view of Huxley, that the forma- 

 tion of the external ear is by involution of the integument. 

 After confirming the contrary observations of Reichert on the 

 embryo pig, he concludes that " the first of the seven bran- 

 chial fissures of the embryo skate is converted into the spiracle, 

 which is the homologue of the Eustachian tube and the outer 

 ear-canal." After a full discussion of the homology of the 

 upper jaw in sharks and skates, under the light afforded by 

 his investigation of the embryo skate, he suggests that the 

 cartilage which extends from the olfactory fossae towards the 

 pectoral fin is the probable homologue of a maxillary bone, 

 and that in the lobe, the homologue of an intermaxillary ; 

 that, if so, the skates and proteiform reptiles agree in having 

 the nostrils open in front of the dental arch ; that while in 

 all Batrachians the nasal groove becomes closed, in the skate 

 it remains permanently open ; and finally, that this view, if 

 confirmed, " will add another feature which justifies Owen, 

 Agassiz, and others, in dissenting from Cuvier so far as to 

 give the Selachians a place in the zoological series higher than 

 that of the bony fishes. But at the same time, it will give 

 corroborative proof of the correctness of Cuvier's view, that 

 ' the rudiments of the maxillaries and intermaxillaries . . . 

 are evident in the skeleton.' " 



In attempting these analyses, I am drifting into a fault 

 which Professor Wyman never committed, that of being too 

 long. So I must leave many of his papers unmentioned, and 

 barely refer to two or three others which cannot be passed 

 over. The most noteworthy of the shorter papers, however, 

 are upon less technical or more generally interesting topics, 

 so that we have need only to be reminded of them. Among 

 them are his " Observations on the Development of the Suri- 

 nam Toad," the paper on Anableps Gronovii, and that " On 

 some unusual Modes of Gestation." The importance of these 

 papers lies, not in being accounts of some of the most striking 

 curiosities of the animal world, but in the sagacity and quick- 

 ness with which he discerned, and the clearness with which 

 he taught the lessons to be learned from them. Any good 

 zoologist, with the same excellent opportunities, would have 



