REPTILIA : VARANOSAURUS 89 



forward as a ridge on the sides of the face to about midway between 

 the orbit and the hind border of the nares; and another pronounced 

 ridge extends downward and forward nearly to the alveolar margin 

 opposite the large mandibular tooth. The profile of the face in 

 front is gently convex to the extreme front end, which overhangs 

 slightly the alveolar margin. On either side the face is somewhat 

 pinched in, forming a somewhat shallowly concave fossa on each 

 side. The nares are small, situated near the extremity of the 

 rostrum, and they are directed laterally. The orbits are nearly 

 circular in outline, with a heavy, thickened anterior border, more 

 pronounced above back of the antorbital elevation. Within the 

 orbit is seen a descending plate on each side, reaching apparently 

 nearly or quite to the pterygoid, from the frontal above, emarginate 

 in front, altogether resembling the rhinencephalic chamber figured 

 by me in Cacops {Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer., XXI, Plate VIII). The 

 posterior bar of the orbits is moderately stout, bounding the large 

 temporal vacuity in front. Posteriorly on each side above a thick- 

 ened sinuous bar extends backward and then downward to the 

 extremity of the quadrate; this bar is not quite complete on the 

 upper and inner sides behind in either skull. Between these 

 suspensorial bars the occipital surface slopes downward from not far 

 back of the orbits in a broad, flattened, or somewhat convex surface 

 to the upper border of the foramen magnum, with a thinned, 

 rounded contour on each side, as seen from above. The occipital 

 condyle projects moderately beyond this border; it is gently con- 

 vex at its end, somewhat heart-shaped, and has a dimpling in the 

 middle, the remains of the notochordal canal. The odontoid, in 

 articulation with the skull in both skulls, is shown in the figure from 

 above. 



The most remarkable character in the skull of Varanosaurus 

 is the absence of the lower temporal arcade; a character wherein 

 the genus differs from all other known genera of reptiles, save the 

 Squamata. The jugal bone ends as a slender, pointed process, 

 a short distance beyond the pointed extremity of the maxilla. 

 Perhaps in life there was a ligamentous connection between this 

 extremity of the jugal and the quadrate, but there is no roughening 

 in these specimens indicative of such. Unfortunately the precise 



