BIRDS WITH TEETII. 
343 
rare feathered fossil animal accord with the strictly ornithic 
modifications of the vertebrate skeleton.” 
But he adds : 44 All birds in their embryonic state exhibit the 
caudal vertebrae distinct, and, in part of the series, gradually 
decreasing in size to the pointed terminal one. 
44 In Archaeopteryx the embryonal separation persists with 
such continued growth of the individual vertebrae as is com- 
monly seen in tailed vertebrates, whether reptilian or mam- 
malian.” 
Professor Owen concludes his able memoir thus: — 44 By the 
law of correlation we infer that the mouth was devoid of lips, 
and was a beak-like instrument fitted for preening the plumage 
of Archceopteryx” &c. 
Among the many careful investigators who examined the 
Archceopteryx from day to day after the arrival of the fossil 
bird, and still more after the reading of Professor Owen’s paper, 
none took a more lively interest in it than Mr. John Evans, 
F.R.S., the present President of the Geological Society of 
London. 
It was by Mr. Evans’s exertions that a rounded nodular 
mass (see Plate, fig. 3 6.) standing up in relief from the surface 
of the slab, attained the honourable comment from Professor 
Owen that it 44 may be, as suggested by Mr. John Evans, 
F.O.S., part of the cranium with the cast of the brain of 
Archceopteryx .” 
It may be well here to state that, having once arrived at the 
idea that this was a cast of the cerebral hemispheres of the brain 
of Archceopteryx , Mr. Evans gave orders to his game-dealer to 
send him every queer bird that came to hand, and as in 
winter we have, from our insular position, the strangest assort- 
ment of marsh-loving birds shot and sent to the London 
market that are perhaps to be met with anywhere, Mr. Evans 
was soon fully employed. Each bird’s cranium was care- 
fully cleaned out, and a cast of the interior made by pouring 
liquid plaster of Paris into it through the foramen-magnum. 
When set, the skull was cut across so as to remove the upper 
and anterior portion and expose the cast of the interior for 
comparison. One of these casts of skulls (that of a carrion crow) 
so prepared is figured in 44 The Geologist,” vol. vi., for January 
1863.* I believe the one which Mr. John Evans conceived to 
be nearest in form to the cast of the brain of the Archceopteryx 
was a . cast of the brain-cavity of a woodcock. I allude to it, 
* Another of these easts — cast of the fore part of the brain of a magpie 
(Corvus pica ) — is figured by Professor Owen on the plate of Archceopteryx 
which accompanies his Memoir, but by an oversight has not been credited 
to Mr. Evans. 
