222 Royal Society : — 



I tlien stated lias been allowed by Dr. Gray, as lie has returned 

 the skull of Scapia Falconeri to this museum on the strength 

 of my representation. 



Before concluding, I may observe that I have never asked 

 Dr. Gray, on any occasion, for his opinion of Dr. Fleming, and 

 that I never had the privilege, while a student, to be a regular 

 member of Dr. Fleming's class ; and under these circumstances 

 I object to Dr. Gray's Chelonian method being applied to me. 



PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 



ROYAL SOCIETY, 



May 30, 1872.— George Biddell Airy, C.B., President, 

 in the Chair. 



" On the Stnicture and Development of the Skull of the Salmon 

 (Salmo sala)', L.)"* By William Kitchen Parker, F.R.S. 



A few years ago Mr. AVaterhouse Hawkins put into my hands 

 some newly batched salmon and also three of the first summer. 

 Seeing their fitness for embryological research and the interest attach- 

 ing to the formation of an osseous fish, I applied to my friends 

 Messrs. Frank Buckland and Henry Lee, and these gentlemen most 

 liberally supplied me with a large number of unhatched embryos and 

 of the " fry " of this large fish. 



My last subject, the frog, being fairly out of hand, I set myself 

 last summer to this newer and more easy task, — more easy by far ; 

 for the translncency of the young salmon contrasts most favourably 

 with the obscurity of the embryo frog. 



I found that the two types at the time of hatching did not start 

 fairly, but that the salmon had hastened to finish its fourth stage 

 before emerging from the egg ; this, however, is partly in conse- 

 quence of the difference of the envelope in which the embryos are 

 contained; for in the salmon this is a leathery "chorion," and in 

 the frog a mere gelatinous bleb. 



Moreover it soon became apparent that these two " Ichthyopsi- 

 dans" are in no wise near akin to each other. In the very first stage, 

 where there is an essential agreement, in one important particular 

 they greatly disagree ; for the embryo of the salmon has two arches 

 in front of its mouth, while the tadpole has but one ; there is also an 

 additional gill-arch in the osseous fish. 



In the earliest stage of the salmon worked out by me I found a 



may believe, and however absurd the Title, we can assure him it stands 

 in his own haud-writing — at the head of the MS. The only alteration, 

 fortunately, which I ventured to make was the substitution of a P for p 

 in J%m/rei. —W.F.] 

 , * Beiuo- an abstract of the Bakerian Lectm-e. 



