[It has already been noted that Huxley's ethnological work continued this year with a second series of lectures at the Royal Institution, while he enlarged his paper on "Two widely contrasted forms of Human Crania," and published it in the "Journal of Anatomy." One paleontological memoir of his appeared this year on Acanthopholis, a fossil from the chalk marl, an additional piece of work for which he excuses himself to Sir Charles Lyell (January 4, 1867):—]
The new reptile advertised in "Geol. Mag." has turned up in the way of business, and I could not help giving a notice of it, or I should not have undertaken anything fresh just now.
The Spitzbergen things are very different, and I have taken sundry looks at them and put them by again to let my thoughts ripen.
They are Ichthyosaurian, and I am not sure they do not belong to two species. But it is an awful business to compare all the Ichthyosaurians. I THINK that one form is new. Please to tell Nordenskiold this much.
[However, his chief interest was in the anatomy of birds, at which he had been working for some time, and especially the development of certain of the cranial bones as a basis of classification. On April 11, expanding one of his Hunterian Lectures, he read a paper on this subject at the Zoological Society, afterwards published in their "Proceedings" for 1867.
As he had found the works of Professor Cornay of help in the preparation of this paper, he was careful to send him a copy with an acknowledgment of his indebtedness, eliciting the reply, "c'est si beau de trouver chez l'homme la science unie a la justice."
He followed this up with another paper on "The Classification and Distribution of the Alectoromorphae and Heteromorphae" in 1868, and to the work upon this the following letter to his ally, W.K. Parker, refers:—]
Royal Geological Survey of Great Britain, Jermyn Street, July 17, 1867.
My dear Parker,
Nothing short of the direct temptation of the evil one could lead you to entertain so monstrous a doctrine, as that you propound about Cariamidae.