254 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



NEW FOSSIL BIRDS. 



Professor O. C. Marsh describes in the America?! Journal of 

 Science for May four new species of fossil birds, three of them 

 belonging to the genus Graculavus, probably closely allied 

 to the cormorants of the present day, and occurring in the 

 cretaceous deposits of New Jersey and of Kansas. The 

 fourth is a species of Pcdceotringa, from the cretaceous green- 

 sand of New Jersey. The same paper contains a more elab- 

 orate description of the very remarkable new fossil bird 

 named by him in January last Hesperornis regalis. This 

 has numerous peculiarities, although it seems to resemble 

 most closely the common loon of the United States. It was, 

 however, much larger, as its complete skeleton would meas- 

 ure nearly six feet from the tip of the bill to the end of the 

 toes. It occurs as a fossil in the gray shale of the upper cre- 

 taceous formations near Smoky Hill Fork, in Western Kan- 

 sas. 4 D, May, 1872. 



SERPENTS IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 



It appears that the British Museum now possesses 920 

 species of serpents, represented by 5500 examples, and that 

 of these 366 are types of new species. 13 A, January 15, 

 1872,30. 



NEW NORTH AMERICAN SERPENTS. 



Professor Cope has lately found, among some reptiles sent 

 him by Dr. Yarrow from the vicinity of Fort Macon, North 

 Carolina, a species of Dromicus, the first instance on record 

 of the occurrence in the United States of a genus of serpents 

 common to the West Indies and Mexico. The close affinity 

 of this to a Jamaican relative is a circumstance strongly sug- 

 gestive, according to Professor Cope, of an introduction by 

 carriage in drift-wood floating: on the current of the Gulf 

 Stream, the time elapsed having been sufficient to differenti- 

 ate it into a distinct species, which has now been named D. 

 flavilatus.Pr. A. JST. &, 1871, 223. 



COPE ON PYTHONOMORPHA. 



In a paper by Professor Cope upon the Pythonomorp7ia, or 

 Python-like fossil saurians of the cretaceous formation of 



