5 i2 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



Smithsonian Institution, is devoted to an imperfect skull 

 obtained in 1847 from the Eocene marl of the Ashley River, 

 South Carolina. In the year of its discovery appeared a 

 brief account of the specimen by Mr. M. Tuomey, who referred 

 it to Zeuglodon ; and two years later it was named Z. pygmceus 

 by Prof. J. M tiller. The specimen afterwards came under the 

 notice of Prof. L. Agassiz, who caused a plate to be prepared, 

 with the lettering Phocodon holmesi; but for some reason this 

 plate was never issued, and in 1895 Prof. E. D. Cope referred 

 the specimen to a new genus, under the name of Agorophins 

 pygmceus. Despite the fact that when first figured the specimen 

 had a single Squalodon-like tooth in the maxilla, a suggestion 

 was made that the species might be an ancestral rorqual. 

 In Mr. True's opinion, Agorophius is, however, a squalodont, 

 differing in cranial characters from Squalodon itself. The 

 European Squalodon ehrlichii has a broad rostrum recalling 

 the Carolina genus, and may be a connecting link between 

 Squalodon and Agorophius. The type specimen of another 

 American Tertiary cetacean — Anoplonassa forcipata — has also 

 been redescribed by Mr. True {Bull. Mus. Zool. Harvard Coll., 

 vol. li. p. 97), who regards it as representing a member of the 

 Physeteridse allied to the modern Mesoplodon. The rarity 

 of cetacean remains in the Eocene clay of Barton, Hampshire, 

 fully justifies Dr. C. W. Andreas in describing {Quart. Journ. 

 Geol. Soc, vol. lxiii. p. 124) a vertebra of Zeuglodon wanklyni; 

 this being the third known specimen of that species. Of the 

 two earlier ones, the second was incorrectly referred to a 

 rorqual, under the name of Balceonoptera juddi. Of greater 

 importance is a memoir by Dr. O. Abel, published in the 

 Denkschriftcn of the Vienna Academy (vol. lxxxvi.), on the 

 rudimentary pelvis of cetaceans. At the conclusion of this 

 memoir the author points out that the development of a caudal 

 fin in cetaceans and sirenians has rendered a functional pelvis 

 superfluous in both groups. Among cetaceans and dugongs 

 the reduction has followed parallel lines, culminating in a 

 retention of portions of the ilium and ischium. On the other 

 hand, the manatis have followed a line of their own, and have 

 retained only the ischium. 



The only important work on fossil marsupials which has 

 come under the writer's notice is an attempt by Dr. E. C. 

 Stirling {Nature, vol. lxxvi. p. 543) to restore the external 



