336 report — 1846. 



forme and pisi forme of the carpus represent together the os calcis of the 

 tarsus. With regard to the other bones there is no difficulty ; the cuboid 

 (b) supports the two ulnar digits, iv, v, of the foot, as the unciform bone (u) 

 does those of the hand : the ecto-cuneiform supports the digitus medius, iii, 

 of the foot as the os magnum (m) does that of the hand : the meso-cunei- 

 form supporting the toe ii is the homotype of the trapezoid supporting the 

 finger ii, and the ento-cuneiform (ci) is the homotype of the trapezium (t). 



It is no unusual exception that of two essentially distinct bones in one 

 segment being represented by a coalesced homotype — a single bone — in an- 

 other segment, as in the explanation above given of the serial homology of 

 the calcaneum. The scaphoides and astragalus in the tarsus of the lion are 

 represented by the single scapho-lunar bone in the carpus. The scaphoid 

 and a cuneiform bone in the tarsus of the sloth and megatherium are repre- 

 sented by the single scapho-trapezium in the carpus. 



I have long entertained the opinion that an appreciation, vague and indi- 

 stinct, perhaps, of certain serial homologies, may have been associated with, 

 if it did not suggest the epithets " scapula of the head," " femur of the head," 

 &c. applied to certain cranial bones by Oken and Spix. 



To Cuvier this language seemed little better than unintelligible and mystical 

 jargon, and he always alludes to it with ill-disguised contempt*. It has been 

 commonly cited by those who have followed the great palaeontologist in de- 

 preciating the cranio-vertebral theory, as a sufficient instance, needing no 

 comment, of the extravagances essentially inherent in such attempts to recog- 

 nise and explain the fundamental pattern to which the modifications of the 

 cranial bones are subordinated. And it must be confessed that the expres- 

 sions by which the philosophical anatomists of the school of Schelling have 

 endeavoured to illustrate in the animal structures the transcendental idea of 

 'the repetition of the M'hole in every part,' have operated most disadvan- 

 tageous^ and discouragingly to the progress of calm and dispassionate 

 inductive inquiry into that higher law or condition upon which the power 

 of determining the special homologies of the bones of the skeleton depends. 

 Nevertheless the utterances of gifted spirits to whom the common intellectual 

 storehouse is indebted for such original and suggestive generalizations as those 

 contained in the "Program fiber die Bedeutung der Schadelknochen " are 

 entitled to some, and we will hope to respectful consideration, even when 

 they happen to be least intelligible or most counter to the conventional ex- 

 pressions of the current anatomical knowledge of the day ; nor will the at- 

 tempt to detect their latent meaning be wholly unproductive. 



With regard, for example, to the term ' scapula capitis ' applied by Oken 

 to the tympanic bone in birds (fig. 23, 2s), it is quite possible that some ap- 

 preciation of its serial homology with ribs and other modifications of the pleur- 

 apophysial element, besides that exhibited by the blade-bone, may have lain at 

 the bottom of the expression. And, we may ask, whether the error here be not 

 rather in the mode of expressing the relationship than in the relationship itself? 

 Had Oken, for example, said that the tympanic bone of the bird was a modified 

 ' pleurapophysis,' or expressed by any other equivalent general term his idea of 

 its standing in such general relation to its proper cranio-vertebral segment, his 

 language would not only have been accurate, but might have been intel- 



* " Quant a M. Oken — il declare les pieces en question les parties ecailleuses des temporaux, 

 ou, selon son langage mystique, ' la fourchette du membre superieur de la fete.' 1 " — Ossem. 

 Foss. v. pt. ii. p. 75. — " Cet humerus de la tele de M. Oken devient pour M. Spix le pubis 

 de cette meme tete ; ou, pour parler un langage intelligible, un des osselets de l'oui'e, 

 savoir, le ruarteau." — " M. Spix croit aussi qu'il repond a la partie ecailleuse du temporal, 

 qu'il decore du titre A'iXon de la tete." — &c. lb. pp. 85, 86. 



