The second volume of "Osteologia" - the proceedings of the annual meetings of the German Society for Osteology - differs from the first one in two ways. In contrast to the preceding one this issue is written in English. There had been good reasons for this decision but there had been equally good arguments against it by some board members. We therefore consider this to be a trial. Being aware of the difficulties to prepare a book not in one's mother tongue the editors only made minor corrections of the authors' con tributions. Having published with the first proceedings an overview of the...