VERTEBRATE PALAEONTOLOGY IN 1912 23 



Western Africa and Eastern South America furnished in a paper 

 by Dr. Eastman (Ann. Carnegie Mus. vol. viii. pp. 376-8) on 

 remains of freshwater fishes from Guinea. The most important 

 of these are referable to a species of double-armoured herring 

 belonging to the Tertiary genus Diplomystus and closely allied 

 to one from the Brazilian Tertiaries. " It is an interesting and 

 significant fact," remarks the author, " that species of the same 

 genus, or at least of very closely allied genera, should occur 

 respectively in the freshwater deposits of the eastern coast of 

 South America and western coast of Africa, the presumption 

 being that the strata are approximately contemporaneous — that 

 is to say, early Tertiary. This coincidence points to a simi- 

 larity of the freshwater fish-faunas of the two continents 

 extending as far back as the dawn of Tertiary time and also 

 suggests a correspondence of geological history between the 

 land-masses on either side of the Atlantic." 



The author then proceeds to discuss the bearing of the dis- 

 covery on the theory of a land-connexion, by means of 

 " Helenis," between Africa and South America ; such hypo- 

 thetical continent having been regarded as the original home 

 of the Lepidosirenidae, Characinidce, Cichlidce, and Siluridce. As 

 the genus Diplomystus also occurs in the Lower Tertiaries of 

 Europe and Western Asia, its distribution is not very dis- 

 similar to that of the Chelonian genus Podocnemis (supra), 

 which may have followed the same lines of migration, whatever 

 these may have been. 



In a second communication (op. cit. pp. 182-7) Dr. Eastman 

 describes the skeletons of two European Jurassic fishes within 

 the ribs of each of which are contained the remains of a lizard. 

 In one case the reptile, which had doubtless been swallowed as 

 food, appears to be a species of the contemporary rhyncho- 

 cephalian genus Homceosaurus, whilst in the second instance the 

 prey may have belonged to the same or a nearly allied genus. 



" The Soft Anatomy of Cretaceous Fishes " appears a some- 

 what strange title for a palaeontological paper, but Dr. Moodie 

 (Kansas Sci. Bull. ser. 2, vol. v. pp. 277-87, 191 1) has obtained 

 material which enables him to record certain details on this 

 point. In the same article he also describes a new species of 

 Thrissopater from the Cretaceous of Texas. 



The affinities of Saurorhamphus freyeri, a fish first described 

 by Heckel in 1849 from the Cretaceous bituminous schists of 



