XV. The Croonian lecture.—On the structure and development of the skull in the lacertilia. - Part I.—On the skull of the common lizards (Lacerta agilis, L. viridis, and Zootoca vivipara)

Abstract

Whilst the last paper, that on the Skull of the Snake, has been passing through the press, I have been engaged in working out the skull of the Common Lizards; hence the likeness and unlikeness of the two kinds has been clearly before my eyes. I consider these small, modern, old-world “Lacertilia” to be the kinds in which the Lacertian specialization has been carried to its fullest development, and that an exhaustive account of their cranio-facial skeleton, its structure and its growth, may serve as a sort of practical rule or norma by which to measure that which is typical, or aberrant, in the skull of other types of the Lacertilia.