FOSSIL REPTILES. 169 



respects, between the kind of rings which the bones of the cra- 

 nium form, and those of the vertebrae, to consider^the cranium 

 as composed of three vertebrae. Thus the body of the anterior 

 sphenoid represents the body of the first vertebra, its alae 

 orbitales the lateral parts of the ring, and the frontals the 

 spinous apophysis : this is called the ocular vertebra. The 

 second, or the maxillary , is represented in the same manner by 

 the body of the hinder sphenoid, by its temporal alae and by the 

 parietal bones ; and the third or auricular vertebra, by the basi- 

 lary bone, the lateral and upper occipitals. Thus seeking in 

 different parts of the head the representatives of the different 

 parts of the entire body, he has seen in the cranium, taken sepa- 

 rately, the head of the head, in the nose the thorax of the head, 

 in the jaws, the upper and lower extremities, or the arms and 

 legs. 



It is easy to conceive that, with a little imagination, applica- 

 tions very different from these, and very different inter se, might 

 be made of a principle so abstracted from common sense, and 

 elevated to such a soaring pitch above mere matter of fact. 

 Accordingly, we find that in 1811, M. Meckel, in his " Materials 

 for Comparative Anatomy," takes the ethmoid for the body of a 

 vertebra, of which the frontals will be the annular part, and 

 represents the temporals as another vertebra, the body of which 

 is divided into two parts (the petrous portions) by the forced in- 

 troduction of the body of a third (the basilary bone). 



The ethmoidal vertebra was afterwards adopted as a fourth, 

 and added, under the name of olfactive vertebra, to the three 

 of M. Oken, by M. Bojanus, in 1818, in the third number of 

 the Isis, and in 1821, in the Parergon of his great work on the 

 anatomy of the tortoise. 



M. Spix, in his work on the composition of the head, entitled 

 Cephalogenesisy published in 1815, sticks to the three vertebrae 

 of the cranium, but departs widely from the views of M. Oken, 

 relative to the bones of the face. 



Representing the hyoid bone, the shoulder, and the pelvis 

 with the extremities thereto attached, as three circles, or groups 



