OCR Text |
Show 1875.] ON THE HVOID BONE OF T H E ELEPHANT. 365 in the product from the oocyans is about f the breadth; and centre is a little further from the blue end, being at wave-length 497 ; and caustic potash does not develop any band as in the other substances. On the whole, then, if we follow the same line of reasoning as that adopted in the case of oorhodeine, we are led to conclude that the product of the oxidization of the two kinds of oocyan is in some way connected with a product of the change and oxidization of the colouring-matter of bile ; arid thus we may perhaps be justified in concluding that there is some chemical relation between the oocyans and bile. Bilirubin can indeed easily be converted by oxidization into a blue substance ; but this differs entirely from either of the oocyans, both in its spectrum and in the character of the products of its decomposition. The residual bile-product found in faeces is in all probability a representative of a much further stage of change than to the oocyans ; and if it could give rise to them it would be by a process of integration, which is not at all likely. On the whole their connexion with bile is as if we had two parallel series of products depending on two distinct physiological processes-one in the liver giving bile, and the other in the oviduct giving rise to eggshell-pigments. CONCLUSION. In conclusion I would say that the chief points which I have, I think, established are that all the varied tints of birds' eggs are due to mixtures of a limited number of colouring-matters, having well-marked specific characters. Except in one particular case, there is apparently no intimate connexion between the organization of the birds and the colouring-matters secreted; but, if further inquiry should prove that on the whole these substances are formed naturally only during the development of the eggs of birds, it would, I think, be an important fact in relation to comparative physiology and chromatology, as showing that special coloured substances are secreted under special anatomical and physiological conditions, as does indeed occur in the case of many other normal and abnormal secretions. 2. On the Hyoid Bone of the Elephant. By A. H. GARROD, B.AV F.Z.S., Prosector to the Society. [Received April 1, 1875.] The hyoid apparatus of the Indian Elephant (Elephas indicus) presents peculiarities which a study of the same in the Ungulata would tend to complicate rather than to simplify. The basihyal together with the thyrohyals form an arch (of which, by the way, I have not seen the components anchylosed even in adult specimens)- which does not present the least difficulty, a small pair of cartilaginous lesser cornua being present in the position of the lesser cornua of anthropotomy. It is the stylohyals which, as far as I can find, have not yet been correctly described. Of them Prof. Owen remarks*, "From the middle of the stylohyal a slender * Anatomy of Vertebrata, vol. ii. p. 441. |