io SCIENCE PROGRESS 



ser. 2, vol. xv. pp. 165-93) describes, with numerous illustrations, 

 the skeleton of a porpoise from the Miocene of Maryland, which 

 is referred to a new species of the Tertiary genus Delphinodon, 

 with the name D. dividum. Although referable to the family 

 Dclphinidce, the extinct genus differs from existing forms by the 

 lack of union of the axis with the atlas vertebra and the dis- 

 tinctly tuberculate character of the hind cheek-teeth. " The 

 most striking primitive characters of the species," observes 

 Dr. True, " are the rugosity of the enamel-layer of the teeth and 

 the presence of anterior and posterior ridges and accessory 

 cusps. The teeth of recent typical delphinoids, with the 

 exception of Steno, have smooth crowns. . . . This peculiarity 

 in a genus which otherwise presents the characters of a typical 

 delphinoid points to affinity with the fossil genus." It is added 

 that accessory cusps occur in the teeth of the white whale 

 (Delphinapterus), which Dr. True regards as representing a 

 family distinct from the Delphinidce. 



In the Atti Ac. Lincei, Mem. ser. 5. vol. ix. pp. 35-8, Messrs. 

 Bassani and Misuri describe and figure the skull of a long- 

 snouted dolphin from the Miocene of Lecce, Otranto, which 

 is identified with a species previously described by Mr. Del 

 Piaz as Ziphiodelphis abeli. 



Leaving cetaceans for edentates, it may be mentioned in 

 the first place that so long ago as the year 1874 two Spanish 

 engineers, Messrs. Cuataparo and Ramirez, described, under 

 the name of Glyptodon mexicanus, the carapace and skull of 

 a large glyptodont, or giant armadillo, from a superficial deposit 

 in Mexico. This specimen, which is in the Mexican National 

 Museum, and another specimen from Mexico in the American 

 Museum of Natural History, form the subject of an article 

 by Mr. Barnum Brown {Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. vol. xxxi. 

 pp. i6y-yy) in which they are referred to the new genus 

 Brachyostracon, under the respective names of B. mexicanus and 

 B. cylindricus, the latter constituting the generic type. In the 

 relatively simple form of the first two lower cheek-teeth the 

 genus is stated to approximate to the South American 

 Sclerocalyptus (Hoplophorus) and Panochthus, although the 

 absence of lateral prolongations of the sides of the carapace 

 and the mode of arrangement of the plates in the head-shield 

 suggest relationship to the typical Glyptodon, The author 



