166 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



by one of those upon whom the Company had imposed 

 the charge of making the descriptions ; and they were not 

 graved, till all those which were present at the 

 dissections found that they were wholly conformable to 

 what they had seen. It was thought that it was a thing 

 very advantagious for the perfection of these figures to 

 be done by a hand which was guided by other sciences 

 than those of painting, which are not alone sufficient, 

 because that in this the importance is not so much to 

 represent well what is seen, as to see well what should be 

 represented." Characters presenting no feature of 

 special interest are hardly more than catalogued, but 

 they explore with patience and curiosity any departure 

 from the commonplaces of anatomy, such as the compound 

 stomach of the Gazelle, and the claws of the Lion. Their 

 limitations are well defined, and not always consistent. 

 They expect too close an agreement with the human type, 

 a belief which constrains the imagination without 

 preventing error, for they deny, after only a casual 

 inspection, that the chamaeleon has an ear. Their lack 

 of familiarity with the microscopical method introduces 

 other difficulties, and they hesitate to distinguish between 

 the kidney of the chamaeleon and its testis. Repeated 

 efforts are made to link up structure and function. Thus 

 they endeavour to associate the production of voice with a 

 vertical glottis, and its absence with a transverse one — an 

 essay in philosophic anatomy after the manner of 

 Aristotle. 



It would be improper to take leave of the work of 

 the Parisians without some statement of the range of their 

 investigations, and of the results they achieved. And in 

 doing so I shall confine myself to the first complete 

 edition, the extended later issues belonging to another 

 period and generation. The animals were dissected and 



