Observations on certain parts of the animal oeconomy. Inclusive of several papers from the Philosophical transactions, etc / by John Hunter ... With notes by Richard Owen.
- John Hunter
- Date:
- 1840
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Observations on certain parts of the animal oeconomy. Inclusive of several papers from the Philosophical transactions, etc / by John Hunter ... With notes by Richard Owen. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![“ Acéphates sans Coquilles,’ but which Hunter, more correctly, termed “ soft-shelled,” having perceived the analogy of their ex- ternal elastic tunic to shell; and having detected, with admirable skill, the relations subsisting between the Ascidiz: and Salpze in different individuals dissected by him, of which dissections there remain not only the preparations, but several beautiful designs, with the original descriptions.* Of Hunter’s appreciation of the progression of affinities we have an example in his sketch of the transition from the terrestrial to the aquatic Mammalia; and I do not doubt that ere long zoologists will uniformly agree in the propriety of passing from. the hippopo- tamus and its pachydermatous congeners to the dugong and the true Cetacea, instead of interposing the Ruminantia between the Pachy- dermata and Cetacea, as in the Cuvierian system. Of his mode of considering the affinities of two great and equal groups, Hunter has left the following specimen, which he quaintly designates “Of the similarity of the Fowl] with the three-cavity- hearted gentry, called Amphibia.” “The lungs of the fowl open into their air-cells or bags that are in the cavity of the belly. ‘The lungs in the Amphibia are con- tinued into the belly, are cellular at the upper part, but in most, as the snake, become smooth bags at the lower end, as it were, answering the same purpose as the abdominal bags in the fowl. The cells of the lung-part are large. “No proper Diaphragm in either; but fowls have something similar to one.t “The Gall is green in both. “The Kidneys are placed in what may be called the pelvis; in both are conglomerated in a particular manner; have the ureter ramifying through their whole substance, and entering into the rectum. The urine is a chalky substance in many of both, and a kind of slime in others. “The Testes are situated in the abdomen in the male of both. “The Vasa deferentia enter the rectum in both. “ The Penis is grooved in both. “ Both oviparous. “Structure of Har similar in both. “ Heart very diflerent. ” These writings fully attest the enlarged views which Hunter en- tertained of comparative anatomy, and of its application not only to the establishment of sound theories of the functions and relative influences of the diffeernt organic systems in the animal body, but also of a natural distribution of different animals into classes ar- ranged according to their affinities. It is in this respect that he has more especially surpassed those of his countrymen who have immediately succeeded him in the same field of inquiry, and whose * See Plates 5, 6, and 7, vol. i. Physiological Catalogue. tT See p. 196.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b33292292_0042.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
