MR. W. K. PARKER ON THE OSTEOLOGY OF BAL^NICEPS REX. 271 



5. Descriptive Catalogue of the Osteological Series contained in the Museum of the 

 Royal College of Surgeons of England, 18.53. 



6. Principal forms of the Skeleton and the Teeth, in ' Orr's Circle of the Sciences,' 



is.^e. 



Professor Goodsir's profound views upon this most difficult and tangled subject will 

 be found in the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal for 1857, in an Abstract of 

 Papers submitted by him to Section D. at the Cheltenham Meeting of the British 

 Association, August 5 — 12, 1856. 



Professor Huxley's opinions are published in his invaluable Croonian Lecture (in 

 which are to be found several references to valuable works on the subject by Germans 

 and others), published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, Nov. 18, 1858 ; also in 

 his paper on Stagonolepis robertsoni, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xv. 1859. Other 

 important papers of Professor Huxley's are to be found in the same Journal, vol. xv. 

 for 1860; namely, an account of some Amphibian and Reptilian remains from South 

 Africa and Australia, — on Rhamphorhynchus bucklandi, — on a fossil bird and cetacean 

 from New Zealand, and — on the dermal armour of Crocodil.us hastingsice. 



Dr. Humphry's beautiful work on the " Limbs of Vertebrate Animals," 1859, and 

 Messrs. Strickland and Melville's description of the Anatomy of the Dodo and allied 

 forms, in their noble work on the Dodo, 1848, will both be referred to. 



The late Professor MacGillivray's works on the Birds of Great Britain ; the excellent 

 articles on Anatomy and Natural History in the ' Penny Cyclopaedia ' ; Griffith's and 

 Pigeon's translations of Cuvier's works ; and the late Dr. Johann Miiller's Book 

 "on Generation," in his 'Elements of Physiology,' as translated by Dr. Baiy, will all 

 yield us some assistance. Those long-beaked mammals, the Cetacea, are profitable for 

 reference when we consider the structure of birds ; and an admirable article on these 

 creatures will be found in Todd's ' Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology,' by 

 M. Frederic Cuvier. 



There is a very important and valuable paper by Dr. John Cleland in the Edinburgh 

 New Philosophical Journal (vol. xii. No. 2. p. 242, October 1860), "on the Vomer 

 in Man and the Mammalia, and on the Sphenoidal Spongy Bones." This is a model 

 paper for unbiassed observation, and freedom from that pleasant mode of supposing 

 instead of ascertaining what is the true nature of an anatomical element. 



Occipital Region of the Skull o/Bal^niceps. (PI. LXV. fig. 3.) 



The shape of the occipital sclerotome of the Balseniceps, as seen from behind, is sub- 

 pentagonal ; the upper margin is formed by two tubercular ridges, which meet at a very 

 obtuse angle above, at the mid-line — the part from which the small crista occipitalis 

 passes downwards. The lateral margins are vertical above, but turn inwards below, 

 curving downwards, inwards, and forwards. The basal line is concave, being arched 



2 q2 



