VERTEBRATE PALAEONTOLOGY IN 1909 651 



a rhinoceros of the etruscus group, for which the name 

 Rhinoceros kronstadtensis is proposed. The molars are stated 

 to be in a considerable degree intermediate between those of 

 R. etruscus and R. mercki. 



Nearly connected with the above is a paper by Messrs. E. 

 Harle and H. Stehlin, in the Bull. Soc. Geol. France, ser. 4, 

 vol. ix. pp. 39 et scq., on the existence of a late Tertiary 

 mammalian fauna on the Quercy plateau of Central France, so 

 well known for its Oligocene land-vertebrates. 



Tertiary mammal horizons of Western America form the 

 subject of an important paper by Prof. H. F. Osborn, with 

 faunal lists by Dr. W. D. Matthew, published in Bulletin No. 361 

 of the U.S. Geological Survey. 



Among a few subfossil remains of existing vertebrates from 

 superficial deposits in Sweden, described by Dr. Einar Lonnberg 

 in vol. vi. No. 3 of Arkiv fur Zoologi, special interest attaches to 

 the occurrence of a skeleton of the ringed seal {Phoca fcetida) 

 in a bed of clay in the parish of TronO, a few miles to the 

 south-west of Soderhamn. The specimen was buried 3 ft. in 

 the clay, at an elevation of about 14 ft. above sea-level, and 

 the associated diatoms indicate that the animal lived at the 

 comparatively recent epoch when the Baltic was a fresh-water 

 lake. Although the skeleton is that of a full-grown male, the 

 bones are much smaller than those of an ordinary ringed seal ; 

 so that the fresh-water Baltic race, like the one now inhabiting 

 Lake Baikal, was evidently small. Two other skeletons, pro- 

 bably of about the same age, of the ringed seal, were found 

 at the village of Rutvik, a short distance from the town of 

 Lulea, at the head of the Gulf of Bothnia. The bed in which 

 these lay, as indicated by the buried diatoms, appears to have 

 been deposited in a fresh-water lagoon ; and the spot where 

 the find was made seems formerly to have been the termination 

 of a system of long and narrow fresh-water sounds and fjords. 

 Dr. Lonnberg suggests that these seals, which are likewise 

 smaller than the ordinary ringed seal, entered the fresh-water 

 at a time when the depth was greater than usual and were 

 unable to find their way out or become shut in when the 

 water-level fell. At any rate, they show that the ringed seal 

 has for a long period been in the habit of entering fresh-water, 

 and that when permanently cut off from the sea it becomes 

 reduced in size. 



