* 
126 Scientific Intelligence. 
points of ossification in the skull of the human fcetus facilitate, and 
were designed to facilitate, child-birth, yet something more than a final 
purpose lies beneath the fact, that all these points represent permanently 
distinct bones in the cold-blooded vertebrata. And again, the cranium 
d’Anatomie Comparée,’ that small degree of countenance to the ver- 
tebral theory of the skull which he had given by the admission of the 
three successive bony cinctures of the cranial cavity in the ‘ Régne 
Animal.’ 
Prof. Owen then briefly alluded to the researches which he had 
undertaken, with a view to obtain conviction as to the existence oF 
otherwise of one determinate plan or type of the skeletons of the ver- 
tebrata generally ; and stated, that after many years consideration 
tebrata ;’ and he proceeded to apply its characters to the four segments 
into which the cranial bones were naturally resolvable. The views of 
the lecturer were illustrated by diagrams of the disarticulated skulls of 
a fish, a bird, a marsupial quadruped, and the human feetus. — T 
common type was most closely adbered to in the fish, as belong: 
that lower class of vertebrata in which “ vegetative repetition”* mos 
prevailed, and the type was least obscured by modifications and combi- 
nations of parts for mutual subservience to special functions. 
bones of the skull were arranged into four segments or vertebra, 0° 
swering to the four primary divisions of the brain, and to the nerves 
| Se 
was The general principle of animal organizations, which Prof. Owen has term A 
the law of vegetative or irrelative repetition,” is explained in the first volume ©! 
his ‘ Hunterian Lectures,—on the Invertebrate Animals.’ . 
