On the osteology of Balaeniceps rex (Gould) / by W. Kitchen Parker.

  • William Kitchen Parker
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the osteology of Balaeniceps rex (Gould) / by W. Kitchen Parker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    5. Descriptive Catalogue of the Osteological Series contained in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, 18.53. 6. Principal forms of the Skeleton and the Teeth, in ‘ Orr’s Circle of the Sciences,’ 18.56. Professor Goodsir’s profound views upon this most difficult and tangled subject will be found in the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal for 1857, in an Abstract of Papers submitted by him to Section D. at the Cheltenham Meeting of the British Association, August 5—12, 1856. Professor Huxley’s opinions are published in his invaluable Croonian Lecture (in which are to be found several references to valuable works on the subject by Germans and others), published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, Nov. 18, 1858; also in his paper on Stagonolepis robertsoni, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xv. 1859. Other important papers of Professor Huxley’s are to be found in the same Journal, vol. xv. for 1860; namely, an account of some Amphibian and Reptilian remains from South Africa and Australia,—on Rhamphorhynchus bucMandi,—on a fossil bird and cetacean from New Zealand, and—on the dermal armour of Crocodilus hastingsiee. Dr. Humphry’s beautiful work on the “Limbs of Vertebrate Animals,” 1859, and Messrs. Strickland and Melville’s description of the Anatomy of the Dodo and allied forms, in their noble work on the Dodo, 1848, will both be referred to. The late Professor MacGillivray’s works on the Birds of Great Britain ; the excellent articles on Anatomy and Natural History in the ‘ Penny Cyclopaedia ’; Griffith’s and Pigeon’s translations of Cuvier’s works; and the late Dr. Johann Muller’s Book “ on Generation,” in his ‘Elements of Physiology,’ as translated by Dr, Baly, will all yield us some assistance. Those long-beaked mammals, the Cetacea, are profitable for reference when we consider the structure of birds; and an admirable article on these creatures will be found in Todd’s ‘ Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology,’ by M. Frederic Cuvier. There is a very important and valuable paper by Dr. John Cleland in the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal (vol. xii. No. 2. p. 242, October 1860), “on the Vomer in Man and the Mammalia, and on the Sphenoidal Spongy Bones.” This is a model paper for unbiassed observation, and freedom from that pleasant mode of supposing instead of ascertaining what is the true nature of an anatomical element. Occipital Region of the Skull of Bala;niceps. (PI. LXV. fig. 3.) The shape of the occipital sclerotome of the Balseniceps, as seen from behind, is sub- pentagonal ; the upper margin is formed by two tubercular ridges, which meet at a very obtuse angle above, at the mid-line—the part from which the small crista occipitalis passes downwards. The lateral margins are vertical above, but turn inwards below, curving downwards, inwards, and forwards. The basal line is concave, being arched 2 Q 2
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