This volume, originally published in 1981, provides a comprehensive account of the structure, development, evolution, functional adaptations and growth of the skull of the placental mammals. A special feature, and indeed principal purpose of the approach, is the integration of the purely anatomical aspects of structure and development of the skull largely worked out in the later years of the nineteenth and early years of the twentieth century with the findings of modern investigations of the evolution, function and postnatal growth of the skull. The significance of further advances becomes more readily understandable when seen against the background of comparative anatomy and embryology. Professor Moore's fresh approach to his subject will be welcomed by anatomists, embryologists, palaeontologists, comparative zoologists and physical anthropologists.