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Show 1883.] PROF. OWEN ON GENERAL HOMOLOGY. 349 name " nationV for this species if it were to be retained in the genus Buarremon. Mr. Sclater called the attention of the Meeting to a Condor from Peru, which had been presented to the Society by Mr. John I. North, on the 13th June, 1877, and which was still living in the Society's Gardens. After six years it was in nearly the same uniform brown plumage as that in which it had been originally received, and which at that time had led Mr. Sclater to suppose it to be the young of the Common Condor (Sarcorhamphus gryphus). Mr. Sclater had now come to the conclusion that this must be a specimen of the " Condor pardo," or Brown Condor, spoken of by Mr. J. Orton1, and subsequently named Sarcorhamphus aquatorialis by Sharpe in his ' Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum' (i. p. 21). Mr. Sclater exhibited a water-colour drawing of this curious bird (Plate X X X V . ) , and pointed out that it differed from the Common Condor in its smaller size, nearly uniform brown plumage, and brown ruff. The example in the Gardens had no caruncle on the head, and was perhaps a female bird, as the specimen seen at x\msterdam by Mr. Sharpe was stated to have a perfectly formed erectile wattle. Mr. G. French Angas exhibited a collection of Butterflies from Dominica, West Indies, made during a seven weeks' residence in that island in February and March last. The following papers were read:- 1. Embryological Testimony to General Homology. B y Prof. O W E N , C.B., F.R.S., F.Z.S., &c. [Eeceived April 18, 1883.] In m y researches on the' Archetype of the Vertebrate Skeleton '2,1 was led to regard the limbs, severally, as an appendage of a haemal arch, diverging therefrom with a free termination. In the majority of these appendages their distal end does not push through the integument: this condition is represented by the " pleural spines " in Fishes (op. cit. pl. ii. fig. 2, a, a), and by the "costal appendages " in Crocodiles (ib. fig. 3, a, a) and Birds (ib. fig. 4, cc, a). The only appendicular elements of the vertebral segment which do push through and undergo diverse degrees of adaptive developments, as " limbs," are those in which such development may be traced from the primitive form in Lepidosiren and Protopterus (ib. fig. 7, a) to that of the many-rayed and jointed diverging appendage of the scapular arch, or "pectoral fin," in other Fishes, and of the varied forms and modifications of tbe fore and hind limbs in higher Vertebrates. 1 ' The Andes and the Amazon,' by James Orton, 3rd ed., New York, 1870. p. 565. 2 8vo, 1848, pp. 72, 101. P R O C ZOOL. Soc-1883, No. XXIV. 24 |
