270 MR. W. K. PARKER ON THE OSTEOLOGY OF BALANICEPS REX. 
of that great man are classical and almost sacred: his genera and species are also 
exceedingly useful as starting-points. This bird, whose ‘ visage darts forth melancholy,’ 
and whose head and jaws are not unlike (as the Arabs say) an upturned Arabian shoe, 
has necessarily many interesting points in its osteology. The purpose of this paper is to 
point out these peculiarities ; and we shall take this opportunity of noting the analogies 
and homologies that occur to us in the osseous structure of the Vertebrata generally, 
and of Birds in particular. No anatomist can look at the skull of the Baleeniceps with- 
out desiring very strongly to know the history of all that melting and coalescence of 
cranial ‘ elements’ which he sees before him. 
The rich literature for which we are indebted to the extraordinary labours of such 
men as Cuvier and Owen, who have principally used the gradational method, will not, 
however, satisfy the mind of him who would see Nature at her work, and behold the 
quiet formation of each part and member—‘ when as yet there are none of them.’ 
We are not without light on this subject: Baer, Vogt, Remak, Reichert, and other 
excellent Embryologists abroad, and Professors Goodsir and Huxley nearer home, have 
made us their deep and lasting debtors ; and we are not without hope that more of our 
own countrymen will labour in this high field, incited thereto by such teachers of 
so pleasant and noble a science. 
In describing the skeleton, and especially the skull of the Balzniceps, we shall use 
freely the published observations of the writers above-mentioned, depending, however, 
principally upon our own labours (as it regards the class of Birds especially), which have 
extended over some twenty years. And it seems to be a more natural and proper thing 
that each man should cautiously and honestly put down his own views, than that he 
should be content to become a stereotyped copy of any great master, multiplying his 
errors a thousand-fold, whilst he makes no addition to his truths. 
It will be more convenient to begin the description of the skull of the Baleniceps at 
its more perfect part, the occipital region, than to take the ethmo-vomerine sclerotome as 
the starting-point ; and a regional description will perhaps be better than one based on 
any theory of its essential segments. Those segments or sclerotomes must, however, be 
discussed ; and it will be well to say at once that our own views on this subject approxi- 
mate much more nearly to those of Professor Huxley than to the doctrine of the archetype 
of the vertebrate skeleton as taught by Professor Owen,—or to the views of Professor 
Goodsir, which are not less transcendental than those of his illustrious contemporary. 
Our references to the works of Professor Owen will be as follows :— 
1. The article Aves in Todd’s ‘ Cyclopedia of Anatomy and Physiology,’ 1835. 
2. Lectures on Comparative Anatomy, vol. ii. 1846. 
3. Report on the Archetype and Homologies of the Vertebrate Skeleton, read at the 
Meeting of the British Association held at Southampton, 1846. 
4. “On the Nature of Limbs:” a lecture delivered at the Royal Institution, 
Feb. 19, 1849. 
