British Association, 1833 



Ruminantia be would do so. So strong were the characters which connected together 

 this order, that Illiger thought it might even be reduced to a geuus. 



Prof. Van der Hoven stated that the peculiar character of the stomach, the ge- 

 neral form of the skeleton, the form of the condyles of the jaw, and the nature of the 

 teeth seemed to connect the Ruminantia so strongly together as to render their fusion 

 with any other order almost impossible. 



Prof. Owen remarked that if we confined our attention to existing forms of 

 animals, we might arrive at the conclusion of Prof. Van der Hoven ; but it was when 

 we studied extinct forms that we saw our ground giving way. He then pointed out 

 the fact, that in the Caraelidae and Mosehidse there was a departure from the normal 

 type of the stomach in Ruminantia, approaching, in fact, the character of that of the 

 Pecora. Although the number and character of the teeth in the adult forms of Ru- 

 minantia differed from those of the Pachydermata, yet when we examined the young 

 of many of the Ruminantia we found there a departure from the adult type, and an 

 approach to that of Pachydermata. Again, Cuvier had placed the fossil genus An- 

 oplotherium amongst Pachydermata on account of its divided or double cannon bone ; 

 but even this character had been observed by Dr. Falconer in the Ruminantia in a 

 species of Moschus. 



Dr. Lankester read a list of dates of the periodical appearance of birds at 

 Llanrwst, observed by John Blackwall, Esq. ; and called attention to the importance 

 of such lists, in connexion with meteorological registers, in determining the influence 

 of external agents on the periodic phenomena of organization. 



Dr. A. G. Melville, on a careful examination of the Lepidosiren annectens, had 

 come to a different conclusion from that held by Prof. Owen on the position of this 

 anomalous animal in the sub-kingdom Vertebrata. He had no hesitation in referring 

 it to the class of Amphibia, and was unwilling to limit that class to the closely allied 

 one of Fishes. He rested its reptilian character upon the absence of the supra-occi- 

 pital bone, the presence of the large epi- and basi-cranial bones, the non-development 

 of the maxillary and inter-maxillary bones, and especially on the enormous magni- 

 tude of the Wernerian bones which became subservient to mastication and were an- 

 chylosed to the expanded pterygoids : also on the composition of the tympanian pe- 

 dicle : on the nostril being doubled and the posterior aperture intra-oral— and referred 

 to Rusconi's remarks on the position of that aperture as influenced by the relative de- 

 velopment of the superior maxilla and vomer : on the double auricle, septum ventricu- 

 losum, semi-spiral bulbus arteriosus, and on the arrangement of the vessels distributed 

 to the external and internal gills and to the lungs ; and in addition to the left pul- 

 monary artery pointed out by Peters, he had found a right one, having, like its fellow, 

 its origin from the truncus aortae : on the existence of external cutaneous gills during 

 the adult condition, which did not occur in any fish, and were not the homologies of 

 the deciduous filaments found in sharks and rays : on the co-existence of external 

 and internal gills with lungs — in other words, on its exhibiting the different modes of 

 circulation, respiration, &c, in the Proteus — second stage of the larva of the frog and 

 Amphiuma or Menopoma — (he instanced the like case of the tadpole, of the Rana 

 paradoxa, in which there were internal gills and lungs with a cartilaginous chorda 

 dorsalis, ossified neurapophysis, and protruded hinder extremities ; were this arrested 

 in its development before the external gills have wholly disappeared, we should have 

 an animal essentially similar to the Lepidosiren) : on the form and relative size of the 

 brain in relation to its containing cavity ; and mentioned certain calcareous concretions 



