178 



REPORT 1846. 



Fig. 1. 



the bones 2,2, figs. 1 to 25; especially since the paroccipital is the most ' lateral' 

 of the elements of the occipital bone, in the definite sense in which the term 

 'lateral' is used in the precise and excellent anatomical nomenclature of 

 Dr. Barclay. For the numerous syno- 

 nyms borne by the element a of the oc- 

 cipital segment of the skull, the term 

 ' supraoccipital ' (supra-occipitale, Lat.) 

 seemed to best agree with the truest de- 

 scriptive phrase of the part, viz. ' occipital 

 superieur.' The interparietal is no con- 

 stant cranial element, nor is it a dismem- 

 berment of one and the same bone of the 

 skull. It is at best only the largest and 

 most common of the accidentally interca- 

 lated ' ossa wormiana.' Sometimes, for 

 example, in the Cebus monkey, it is a 

 dismemberment of the backwardly-pro- 

 duced frontal bone : more frequently it is 

 the detached upper angle of the supra- 

 occipital. But by this term ' supraoccipi- 

 tal,' I signify the totality of the bone 3 (in 

 figs. 1,5, 18, 22, 23, 24, 25), confining 



the term interparietal to its Superior and Disarticulated epencephalic or neur-occipital arch, 

 1 , , , 1 , „ , viewed from behind : Cod (Morrhua .vulgaris). 



anterior apex when detached, or to the 



superior and posterior apex of the frontal, when it is in like manner detached 

 and wedged between the parietal bones. The inapplicability of the term ' in- 

 terparietal' to the whole of the supraoccipital is strongly manifested in those 

 fishes, e.g. the carp and tench, in which the supraoccipital is withdrawn from 

 between the parietals to the back part of the skull, leaving those bones to come 

 into contact and unite by the normal sagittal suture on the mesial line of 

 the vertex. GeoffVoy's error is of the same kind, and scarcely greater than 

 Cuvier's, where he applies the term ' interparietal' to the whole of the parietal 

 bones in Birds*. The supraoccipital thus defined can never be mistaken for 

 the ' sur-occipital' of GeofFroy, who by this term signifies the elements called 

 ' occipitaux externes' by Cuvier. At the same time the term 'sur-occipital' is 

 too near in sound to 'supraoccipital,' and too significant of the highest part of 

 the occipital segment to be retained for elements, which, like the 'paroccipi- 

 tals'(fig. 1,4,4), are usually inferior in position to the supraoccipital. GeofFroy. 

 moreover, is not consistent in his application of the term ' sur-occipital.' In 

 his memoir on the skull of the crocodile in the ' Annales des Sciences' for 

 1824, he applies that term to a part of the bonef? the whole of which he calls 

 'exoccipital ' in his later memoir, on the skull of the crocodile, of 1833 J; 

 whilst in the memoir illustrated by the skull of the Sea-perch (Serranits 

 gigas) in the-' Annales des Sciences' for 1825, the term 'suroccipital' is ap- 

 plied to the whole of the bones described as ' occipitaux externes' by Cuvier. 

 I trust, therefore, to have shown the necessity for the definite name of 

 ' paroccipital' (paroccipitale, Lat.) which is here proposed for the elements, 4, 

 of the occipital segment of the cranium (figs. 1 and 5). The name has re- 

 ference to the general homology of the bones in question, as ' parapophyses' 

 or transverse processes of the occipital vertebra. And if the purists who are 

 distressed by such harmless hybrids as 'mineralogy,' 'terminology' and 'mam- 



* Annales du Museum, x. p. 363, pi. 27. 



t PI. 16. fig. 5r-|-rl' " Plur-occipital forme du sur-occipital et de l'ex-occipital." 



% Memoires de l'Acad. Royale des Sciences, t. xii. Atlas, p. 43. 



