VERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY IN 1909 671 



other turtles is brushed away at one stroke, and the leathery 

 species is nothing more than a highly specialised offshoot from 

 the typical stock. The point is not, indeed, at present fully 

 proved, although the American specimens go a long way in 

 indicating that such proof will ultimately be forthcoming and 

 Dr. Wieland is of opinion that those who regard Dermochelys 

 as a specialised modification from the type of the Chelonidce 

 have somewhat the best of the argument. A new species of 

 leathery turtle from the Miocene of Maryland, referable to the 

 extinct genus Psephophorus, is described by Mr. W. T. Palmer 

 in vol. xxxvi. pp. 369-73, of the Proceedings of the U.S. National 

 Museum. 



In the same volume, pp. 191-199, Dr. O. P. Hay describes 

 remains of a marine turtle from the Niobrara beds of Wyoming 

 referable to Toxochelys stenopora and likewise remains of a 

 terrapin from the Fort Union beds of Montana provisionally 

 assigned to the genus Chisternon, with the specific designation 

 C. interpositum. This genus, which is typically from the 

 Bridger Eocene, together with the Canadian Boremys, is re- 

 markable for the presence in the carapace of a preneural bone 

 interpolated between the first neural and the nuchal. 



Considerable interest attaches to the description by Dr. 

 A. Smith Woodward, in Proc. Dorset Nat. Hist. Club, vol. xxx. 

 pp. 143-145, of a fine skull of Pleurosternum from the Purbeck of 

 Swanage. 



In the seventh volume, pp. 285-289, of the Annals of the South 

 African Museum, Dr. R. Broom makes an attempt to refer to 

 their proper horizons the extinct vertebrates of the Karu forma- 

 tion of South Africa. Another paper in the same issue, pp. 270- 

 278, likewise by Dr. Broom, is devoted to the description of 

 various extinct South African reptiles and amphibians. Among 

 the former, attention may be specially directed to a new generic 

 type of theriodont described as Bauria cynops, of which the 

 skull is remarkably mammal-like and specially noteworthy in 

 the absence of a bar between the orbit and the temporal fossa — 

 a feature differentiating it from all other theriodonts. In a third 

 paper, op. cit. pp. 283, 284, the same author describes the shoulder- 

 girdle of Cynognathus. 



Footprints from British Permian deposits form the subject 

 of a paper by Mr. G. Hickling in the Manchester Memoirs, vol. iii. 

 No. 22, written from a stratigraphical rather than a palaeonto- 



