658 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



ossified palate bordered behind by a ridge, the marginal or extra- 

 orbital lachrymal foramen, the elongated nasal bones, and the 

 backward position of the orbits. 



Rodents seem to have occupied the attention of palaeon- 

 tologists only to a small degree during the year. A paper 

 was, however, contributed in 1908 by Dr. L. v. Mehely to 

 vol. vi. of the Annates Musei Nationalis Hungari on the claim 

 of the Pliocene Hungarian Prospalax prisons to be regarded as 

 the ancestor of the modern mole-rats of the genus Spalax. In 

 the author's opinion the original ancestral form of the family was 

 a rodent near akin to the Indo-Malay bamboo-rats {Rhizomys). 

 From this have sprung, !on the one hand, Prospalax and Spalax, 

 while another branch is formed by the African Tachyoryctes. 

 In describing the remains of a hare from the ossiferous fissures 

 of Ightham, Kent, in vol. xii. p. 295, of the Scientific Proceedings 

 of the Royal Dublin Society, Mr. M. A. C. Hinton takes occasion 

 to state that he considers it advisable to employ the name 

 Lepus variabilis (instead of timidus) for the blue hare, on 

 account of the double sense in which the latter title has been 

 employed. This Kent hare is regarded as a distinct race, 

 under the name of L. v. anglicns', and it is pointed out that, 

 as all the Pliocene European hares appear to pertain to the 

 variabilis group, the brown hare (L. europceus) may be looked 

 upon as a recent intruder into Europe. Remains of hamsters 

 have been recorded by Mr. E. T. Newton, in the Geological 

 Magazine for 1909, from the Norfolk Forest-bed. 



Turning to ungulates, the most remarkable event of the 

 year, so far as that group is concerned, is the discovery by 

 Miss D. Bate of the remains of a peculiar type of goat in a 

 cave in the island of Majorca, in the Balearic group. The 

 specimens obtained include the skull (unfortunately imperfect 

 in front) and certain other parts of the skeleton and indicate 

 a new generic type for which their describer proposes the 

 appropriate name of Myotragus balearicus. Except for a notice- 

 able shortening of the whole, and especially a marked convexity 

 of the profile of the lower jaw, the skull is, in general character, 

 that of a small goat. The lower jaw, in addition to a highly 

 convex inferior border, is, however, peculiar in being furnished 

 with only a single pair of lower incisors, curiously similar to 

 those of a rodent, the resemblance being not confined to the 

 fact that these teeth are highly curved, chisel-like in form and 



