232 MR. W. K. PARKER ON THE OSTEOLOGY 



in the Tinamou, from head to foot this foolish, hzard-Uke bird of the dust has only 

 pushed against, but has not been able to break from, the outer Ostrich-barrier. 



APPENDIX. 



A. — Notes and Criticisms on the Memoir " On the Osteology 0/ Balseniceps rex" 



(Zool. Trans. 1861). 

 From the very nature of my work, which is that of determining the affinities of birds 

 by means of their skeletal structures, a large amount of morphological detail has to be 

 given. In my former large paper this detail was very much in excess ; and in the 

 present it rather preponderates over that which is purely zoological. This arises from 

 the fact that the actual development of the skeleton generally, and especially of the 

 skull, is only beginning to open itself up to me. I may state that in the working-out 

 of the present paper I have stumbled upon many curious embryological facts, both in 

 the Bird-class and amongst Fishes, Reptiles, and Mammals, which were not known to 

 me heretofore. 



Moreover, during this time, the privilege of frequent discussions with men of less 

 embarrassed and clearer thought has imparted to me not merely fresh impulse and 

 valuable hints, but also facts of the greatest importance. The invaluable course of 

 lectures, delivered during the past year by Professor Huxley, at the College of Surgeons, 

 have been of the greatest value to me ; and his lucid determinations of the meaning of 

 the periotic bones, and of the large splint bone at the base of the skull, in Fishes and 

 Amphibia form most excellent stand-points from which to begin future researches in 

 the morphology of the skull. 



The highly composite nature of the pterygo-palatine apparatus, and of the rhinal 

 structures, — the great variety in the development of the tympanic chain of bones, — the 

 absence, as a rule, or extremely abortive condition of the maxillary in birds, — and the 

 determination of the so-called maxillaries to be the homologues of the miscalled inferior 

 turbinals of the Lacertian and Ophidian, — these and many other points, which in their 

 opening up have gladdened me in my labours, must be treated of elsewhere. 



In both zoology and botany the discovery of new species is ever disturbing the old 

 order of things : it is just so in morphology ; and the nomenclature must be as mobile 

 as the science which it subserves. 



Many of the statements in my former paper with regard to the general morphology 

 of the vertebrate skull are very open to criticism ; I am now engaged in such researches 

 as will either prove or disprove them : there is not space to deal with them here. 



In the present paper I have endeavoured to make the nomenclature of the parts of 

 the skull simpler and more accurate, and especially to keep safe by the old familiar 

 terms used in descriptions of the human skull. For Professor Owen's term " ento- 



