VERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY IN 1913 629 



mentioned a paper by Dr. J. C. Merriam {University of Cali- 

 fornia Publications, Bull. Dep. Geol. vol. vii. pp. 373-85) on the 

 vertebrate fauna of the Orindan and Siestan beds of California, 

 which are of Miocene age. 



Another faunistic paper is one by Mr. H. G. Stehlin {Bull. 

 Soc. Geol. France, ser. 4, vol. xii. pp. 198-212, 191 2) on the 

 palaeontology of the Tertiary sands of Rosieres, near St. Florent, 

 Cher. A new species of Cervus is described. 



Of wider interest is an article by Dr. Ernst Stromer {Zeits. 

 deutsch. Geol. Ges. vol. lxv. pp. 350-72) on the Middle Pliocene 

 fauna of the Wadi Natrun, Egypt, in which, among numerous 

 other forms, an extinct otter is described as new, under the name 

 of Lutra libyea. 



Reverting to systematic work on mammals, the next paper 

 for notice is one by Dr. W. D. Matthew {Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. 

 Hist. vol. xxxi. pp. 307-14), on the skull of a new type of the 

 Insectivora — Palceoryctes puercensis — from the Puerco, or Lowest, 

 Eocene of New Mexico. It is referred to the primitive and 

 scattered group now represented by the solenodons {Solenodont- 

 idce) of the West Indies, the otter-shrew {Potamogale) and the 

 golden moles {Chrysochloridcc) of Ethiopian Africa — a convenient 

 term to denote that part of the African continent lying to the 

 south of the northern tropic — and the tenrecs {Centctidai) of 

 Madagascar ; the affinity with the last being so close that 

 Dr. Matthew is inclined to include the extinct genus in the same 

 family. Here it should be mentioned that although the group is 

 now unknown on the continent of America, it was represented 

 in Patagonia during the Miocene by Nccrolestes, which appears 

 to have been nearly related to the golden moles, and also by 

 four more or less closely related genera in North America. The 

 problem now awaiting solution is whether the living and extinct 

 southern members of these Zalamdodont Insectivora, as the 

 whole group is called, reached their respective habitats by means 

 of one or more land-bridges between the great southern conti- 

 nents, which were almost certainly in existence during the early 

 part of the Tertiary period, or whether they travelled southwards 

 from the northern hemisphere by independent routes. 



Be this as it may, the newly described genus seems to indicate 

 that the Centetidm are the oldest existing family of placental 

 mammals. It likewise points to the great antiquity of the 

 triangular, or tritubercular, type of molar tooth, which forms a 



