xliv SCIENCE PROGRESS. 



Since the author gives prominence to morphological considerations, 

 we the more regret his too ready adoption of Hasse's classification by 

 vertebral characters, which has always appeared to us somewhat pre- 

 mature and overdone, and also of the full details of Bashford Dean's 

 description of the Cladoselache fins, which we consider insufficiently 

 established ; while, in connection with the question of median fin 

 supports, we could have desired reference to the important observations 

 of Bridge on those of the recent Teleostomi. Mention might also have 

 been made of the temporal fossae of Loxomma, as an important struct- 

 ural departure among the Stegocephalia, and of the compound nature 

 of the sacrum in the Palaeobatrachidae, as also of the remarkable Italian 

 fossil Anura, described by Portis in 1885. And, again, in diagnosing 

 certain of the Reptilian orders, greater stress might have been laid on 

 the forward extension of the pterygoids to meet the Vomers (as, for 

 example, in the account given of the Plesiosauria on p. 159, as com- 

 pared with that of the Ichthyosauria on p. 177), which all recent investi- 

 gation has shown to be a character lying at the root of the Sauropsidan 

 series. 



In questions of nomenclature the author is not always consistent, 

 for in the use of synonyms and choice of names he has not adhered 

 to any fixed rule. For example, if " Predentata" being admitted as a 

 synonym for the Dinosauria Ornithopoda, why not Pterosauria for the 

 Ornithosauria and Amphibia for Batrachia (justly revived on grounds 

 of priority) since these have long come into general use ? And as re- 

 gards some of the author's determinations of affinity, we fail to see the 

 reason of his action ; as, for example, in the placing of the Proto- 

 thylacinus of the Patagonian Tertiary among the Creodonta. The 

 Tillodontia are retained among the Rodentia, and the remarkable 

 suggestion is implied that the Creodonta may have originated among 

 lowly mammalian forms in the Trias or Jura. These are among 

 the more questionable topics which call for comment and reconsidera- 

 tion, together with an occasional misuse of technical terms, as, for ex- 

 ample, the reference to an " abdomen " in a fish (i.e., a distinction 

 between abdominal and caudal regions of the body) — matters all of 

 them which mostly affect the interpretation of parts and mere differences 

 in opinion as to ideas and the limitations of terminology. They do not 

 in the least detract from the value of the work, which must rank fore- 

 most among current text-books of vertebrate palaeontology. The dis- 

 covery during the last half decade of Nesopithecus by Forsyth Major, 

 of Pithecanthropus by Dubois, the description by Traquair of Palceo- 

 spondylus, like the still more recent announcement by him of Silurian 

 shark remains and by Marsh of an apparent amphibian footprint in the 

 Devonian, show that vertebrate palaeontology is full of promise for the 

 future, and we rejoice in the present book as one that will do much 

 towards reinstating this most tangible, but none too well-recognised, 



branch of Morphology. 



G. B. E. 



