TRANSACTIONS OP THE SECTIONS. 153 



himself tliat_ the fact he was about to communicate had escaped all previous obser- 

 vers. Had it beeu mentioned, however, in any special monogTaph on the Talpa 

 Jlnropcsa, vrhich might have escaped liis research, he thought it woidd have been 

 considered worthy of a reference by the comprehensive and industrious Stamiius, 

 and might have led the shai-p-sighted De Blaiu^-ille to a more rigorous scmtiny of 

 the vertebral column than he had bestowed upon it in his MonogTaph on the Oste- 

 ology of tiic Mole— the last on that subject with which comparative anatomy has 

 been enriched. Jacobs, in his generally minute and accurate monogi-aph, when 

 treating of the cervical vertebrre, notices only their spinous processes, and, after 

 describing the lai-ge one of the Epistropheus, proceeds,— " Vertebra; colli ceterc-e 

 processum spinosum habent nullum, et niagis annulis similes simt, quorum inter- 

 stitia aspera) arterice intcrstitiis similes sunt " (p. 14), and this description has been 

 g-eneally repeated. Cuvier writes,—" Dans les Taupes, elles (les cinq autres cervi- 

 cales) ne ferment egalenient que des simples anneaux entre lesquels il y a beaucoup 

 de jeu." So likewise Professor Eobert E. Grant wiites, — " The remaining cervical 

 vertebrce are behind, like so many loose rings, shorn of their spinous and transverse 

 processes, to allow of the freest motion with safety to the spinal chord." Professor 

 Bell more accurately states, " that in the Talpidas and the Soricidas the cei-vical 

 vertebra; have strong transverse processes, and, excepting the second, do not pos- 

 sess any spinous processes." Professor De Blainville, in a more detailed accoimt 

 of the skeleton, having express reference to the species under consideration (Talpa 

 Europ(va), savs , " Les quatre denueres (vertebres cervicales) se ressemblent en ce 

 que lour arc, fort etroit, ne preseute aucune trace d'apophyse epineuse ; les trans- 

 verses sont egalenient peu marquees, sauf le lobe inferieur'de celle de la sixieme, 

 assez dilate, du moins trans versalement." 



If the cultivators of other, and more particularly of the exact, sciences were to 

 judo-e of zootomy by the discrepancy of the testimonies adduced by some of the 

 highest names in this science, as to a simple foct, easily determinable by observa- 

 tion, of one of our commonest native quadrupeds, they might conclude that the 

 foundation of our geno'alizations in comparative anatomy reposed upon an insecure 

 basis, and that the metliod of obtaining- the materials for such basis by the first 

 process of induction — the simple exercise of the eyes— stood in need of much 

 improvement. For while one anatomist implies the absence of transverse pro- 

 cesses in the cervical vertebra; of the mole by his sUence, and another directly 

 aflirms their non-existence, a third describes them as being- " strong," and a fom-th 

 as being "little marked." 



The fact is, that these so-called " transvei-se processes " are not only present in 

 all the cenical vertebra;, but are variously and peculiarly developed, so as to give 

 the niole the same advantage in strengthening and stiifening its neck, and imped- 

 ing its lateral inflexions, which the crocodile derives from a similar modification of 

 what might, with equal propriety, be temied in it the " transverse processes of the 

 cervical vertebra;," viz. ]jy their intricate or reciprocally overlapping arrangement, 

 due to the shape and size of the costal elements of such transverse processes. But 

 the mole has so far the advantage over the crocodile in this arrangement as that, 

 whereas the costal part of the transverse process retains its foetal separation in the 

 cold-blooded Reptilia, it becomes finnly anchylosed to the other parts of the trans- 

 verse process in the small warm-blooded mammal. In a fomier memoir, " On the 

 Processes of Vertebnc," Professor Owen had given the results of an analysis of the 

 "cervical transverse process," showing it to consist of the autogenous " plem-apo- 

 phjsis," combined with the exogenous " parapophysis " and " diapophysis." In 

 the mole the pleurapophysis joins the diapophysis, circumscribing the vertebrarte- 

 rial foramen, and developing a short process from the point of junction. In the 

 third vertebra the pleurapophysis, or costal part of the " transverse process," is 

 compressed and produced backwards and a little outwards and downwards, over- 

 lapping the anteriorly produced part of the pleurapophysis of the fom-th cervical. 

 This portion of the " transverse process " much resembles the corresponding but 

 separate element in the same vertebra of the crocodile, except that it is " sessile," 

 instead of being supported on a short peduncle; it is, for example, broad, com- 

 pressed, and produced downwards, foi-wards, and backwards — its larger and lono-er 

 posterior portion overlappin<j the anterior end of the pleurapophysis of the fi?th 

 vertebra, as the same part of itself is overlapped by the pleui-apophysis of the third 



