"Opercula" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hidden and rudimentary, Nature makes profitable use of the four tiny ossicles lodged in the auditory passage, and, raising them in fish to the greatest possible dimensions, forms from them these broad opercula...." (p. 85). Or you may take it the other way about, and start from the organisation of fishes; opercular bones are of no use to air-breathing animals, so they dwindle away, and are pressed into the service of the ear, although they are of little ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell |
