5 i8 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



headed cervical ribs. From other plesiosaurians in which the 

 skull is fully known, it differs in that the palatines meet each 

 other in the middle line, but this is a feature which the author 

 thinks will be met with in Pliosaurus. The assumed relationship 

 of the plesiosaurs to chelonians is disputed. The latter lack, for 

 instance, epiphyses to the humerus, while such resemblance as 

 exists between the shoulder-girdle in the two groups is due to 

 adaptation. Chelonians are without the parietal foramen of 

 plesiosaurs, and retain the hypocentral mode of articulation 

 of the ribs, whereas in plesiosaurs the ribs are attached to the 

 transverse processes of the vertebrae. Sauropterygia are, indeed, 

 probably descended from theriodont ancestors, while Chelonia 

 appear to be derived from a cotylosaurian type, both being 

 widely sundered from ichthyosaurs and rhynchocephalians. 



Brief reference will suffice to a paper by Mr. F. Broili, 

 published in the Centralblatt fur Mineralogie, on certain reptilian 

 remains from the Kossen beds of the Trias of the Alps. From 

 the form of the dorsal vertebrae and the stoutness of the 

 abdominal ribs, the specimens evidently indicate one of the 

 nothosaurs, or primitive sauropterygians. Their large size 

 suggests affinity with Parian osaurus, but in structure the 

 vertebrae appear to display characters intermediate between 

 those of that genus and those of Nothosaurus. 



In a communication to Science for 1906 (vol. xxiv. p. 184) 

 Prof H. F. Osborn states that the American Museum has 

 received from the Brazilian Coal Commission natural casts 

 of a small Permian reptile near akin to Stereostermini of the 

 same country and horizon, and to Mcsosanrus of the South 

 African Permian. An opinion is quoted to the effect that none 

 of these reptiles are related to the plesiosaurs (Sauropterygia). 



The huge Eocene turtle known as Eosphargis gigas, typically 

 from the London Clay, also occurs in the corresponding forma- 

 tion of Belgium, where an almost complete specimen has been 

 discovered at Quenast. According to Mr. Dollo (in the serial 

 already quoted) the upper shell, or carapace, of this turtle is 

 quite different from that of the modern leathery turtle, and is of 

 the general type obtaining in ordinary turtles. 



Remains of soft river tortoises (Trionychidae) from various 

 North American horizons form the subject of a paper by 

 Mr. O. P. Hay in the Bulletin of the American Museum, 

 vol. xxiii. art. 34. 



