1846-47 TECHNICAL TERMS 293 
rise, sometimes by rejecting both names and 
suggesting a word more descriptive than either, 
sometimes by compounding the two in such a way 
as to suggest, by the very name, both the ideas 
which the two names contained. He gives the 
reasons which ‘ compel him in some instances to 
dissent from the high authority of Cuvier, 
Geoffroy, and Agassiz. The objection to some 
of the French nomenclature was that it often dealt 
in descriptive phrases rather than in single 
expressive terms — for example, the word ‘ hypo- 
branchial ’ replaces what Cuvier calls the ‘ piece 
interne de la partie inferieure de I’arceau bran- 
chiale.’ The German language, on the other 
hand, though susceptible of happy combinations 
as regards description, yields such results as to 
make it impossible for many words to become the 
current language of anatomy ; for example, Owen’s 
Comparatively harmless words ‘ supra-orbital ’ and 
‘ supra-temporal ’ contrast favourably with the 
terrible expressions used by German naturalists 
— Obe7'atigenhdhlenbein and Atigenbogenschuppe ! 
for, as Owen himself remarks, such terms, ex- 
cellent as they are in their way, ‘ are likely to be 
Restricted to the anatomists of the country where 
the vocal powers have been trained from infancy 
to their utterance. 
The Hunterian Lectures given by Owen this 
year were on the ‘ Anatomy of Fishes.’ These 
lectures were afterwards published from notes 
