82 PROFESSOR OWEN ON THE 
as I seemed to do on this point in the array of evidence before the “ Parliamentary 
Committee on the British Museum,” I was glad to find my views on type-forms adopted 
and paraphrased by the President in his Address to the British Association at the 
meeting at Nottingham", in the present year. 
DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATES. 
PLATE XV. 
Fic. 1. Side view of the skeleton of the Dodo (Didus ineptus, L.), with an outline of 
the bird as represented in the oil-painting presented to the British Museum 
by Epwarps, Naturalist and Librarian of the Royal Society, to whom it had 
been given by Sir Hans Sloane, P.R.S., with the statement that the painting 
had been made, of the natural size, from a living specimen of the Dodo, in 
Holland. The bones represented in profile, of the natural size”, testify to the 
accuracy of the form and proportions of the Dodo given in the painting. 
. An outline of the Samoan Dove or Dodlet (Didunculus strigirostris, Peale ; 
Gnathodon strigirostris, Jardine*) of the natural size, from a specimen living 
in 1865 in the Gardens of the Zoological Society of London, with a view of 
the skeleton corresponding with that of the Dodo. 
bo 
Fig. 
PLATE XVI. 
. Front view of the fourth (or first of the three confluent) dorsal vertebre (centrum 
and neural arch). 
ic] 
oe 
ge 
— 
. Vertebral rib, or pleurapophysis, of the same vertebra, front view. 
ky 
da de 
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3. Sternal rib, or heemapophysis, of the same vertebra: a, outer side; 6, upper or 
pleural end; c, lower or sternal end; d, front margin ; e, inner surface. 
Fig. 4. Front view of sternum, or connate mass of hemal spines, including that of the 
same (fourth dorsal) vertebra. 
Fig. 5. Inner surface of an anterior pleurapophysis, with coalesced appendage, a. 
Fig. 6. Oblique view of ditto, ditto. 
1 «The doctrine of typical nuclei seems only a mode of evading the difficulty. Experience does not give us 
the types of theory; and, after all, what are these types? It must be admitted there are none in reality. 
How are we led to the theory of them? Simply by a process of abstraction from classified existences. Having 
grouped from natural similitudes certain natural forms into a class, we select attributes common to each 
member of the class, and call the assemblage of such attributes a type of the class. This process gives us an 
abstract idea; and we then transfer this idea to the Creator, and make Him start with that which our own 
imperfect generalization has derived.’’ (Address, &c., by Witt1am R. Grove, Esq., Q.C., M.A. 8yvo, London, 
1866: p. 31.) 
°* The scapular arch is rotated in advance of the ribs to show the character of the anterior dorsal vertebre. 
* See also Gould, ‘ Birds of Australia,’ part 22 (March, 1846). 
