MESSES. A. AND E. NEWTON ON THE OSTEOLOGY OF THE SOLITAIEE. 331 
This statement may seem bold, but we are convinced that it is true. With great defer- 
ence to the mightiest masters of the science, we venture to submit that many of them 
have too often undervalued the benefit of consulting long series of specimens, and that 
the principle of ex uno disce omnia is one which must on no account be admitted to hold 
good in anatomy any more than in zoology. Nor is the variability of which we speak 
wholly dependent on age or sex* * * § . Thus we are compelled to refrain from giving any 
of those precise measurements of the specimens we describe, such as are usually found 
in works of this nature, an omission which we trust will not be found productive of real 
inconvenience, owing to the number of figures by which the present paper is illustrated 
— figures nearly all of the natural size, and drawn most carefully by the artist, Mr. Ford, 
Next we must state that Professor Owen having published an elaborate description of 
the osteology of Didus inept us f, we have endeavoured, so far as was possible, to make 
our description of the osteology of the kindred bird conform with his both in general 
arrangement and special treatment, believing that by so doing we were but consulting 
the convenience of those who may wish to compare the structure of the two. Professor 
Owen’s masterly treatise has been always at our side while examining, selecting, and 
describing the bones of Pezophaps solitaria, as has also been the equally elaborate dis- 
sertation of Dr. Melville J on such bones of this species as were known to him, and we 
have often availed ourselves of the expressions of either author for the express purpose 
of making the comparison the more obvious. 
Here, lastly, it must be mentioned that, thanks in a great measure to the generosity 
of Mr. George Clark of Mahebourg, in Mauritius, we have had the advantage of 
studying at the same time a series of Dodos’ bones (the fruits of his remarkable disco- 
very) more extensive even than that which furnished the subject of Professor Owen’s 
treatise, and this by the kindness of the latter we have also had an opportunity of ex- 
amining. Further, we have been indebted to various other friends and naturalists for 
other specimens tending to illustrate the subject, to Professors Reinhardt and Fritsch 
for casts of Didine remains existing in Copenhagen § and Prague respectively, to Pro- 
fessor Alphonse Milne-Edwards for models of the Pezophaps- bones in Paris, and to Sir 
William Jardine for casts of those in Glasgow; while we have also to express our 
acknowledgments to the authorities of the Royal College of Surgeons of England for 
their liberality in lending us the precious skeleton of Didunculus strigirostris || from 
* We have certainly never made a close study of sucli an extensive series of the tones of any one otter 
species as we have done of the Solitaire, and therefore we are perhaps not in a position to form a true compa- 
rison ; hut it does seem to us that the amount of individual variation hoth here and in the Dodo is extraordinarily 
great. The possible explanation of this fact, if it he a fact, will he discussed in our concluding observations, 
t Trans. Zool. Soe. vol. vi. pp. 49-85, pis. xv.-xxiv. J ‘The Dodo’ Ac. part ii. pp. 113-119. 
§ The Copenhagen Dodo’s head is often spoken of as “ mutilated,” and by one writer as “ lacking the lower 
jaw.” Its sole imperfections are the absence of the left pterygoid, and the enlargement of the foramen mag- 
num. The mandible is as perfect as that of the Oxford specimen, or as one in our own possession. 
|! The more valuable since it is the specimen described and figured by Professor Owen in his paper “ On the 
Osteology of the Dodo ” ( ut supra cit.). 
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