6,8 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



interesting specimen has been redescribed and figured by Dr. A. 

 Smith Woodward in vol. lxx. (pp. 316-20, plate xliv.) of the 

 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. t where it is identified with Dryopithecus 

 fontani. It was obtained from the Upper Miocene of Seo de 

 Urgel, Lerida, Spain. In several respects, notably in the 

 form of the jaw at and near the point of insertion of the digastric 

 muscle and in the small size of the first molar, Dryopithecus 

 approximates to the contemporary macaque-like genus Mesopithe- 

 ctts, and may therefore be regarded as a primitive type. The 

 relatively small size of the first molar in these genera is, how- 

 ever, paralleled among modern anthropoids, although to a 

 somewhat less degree, in the gibbons and gorilla. 



Considerable interest attaches to a short article by Fraulein 

 Albertina Carlsson in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society 

 for 1914 (pp. 227-30, pi. i.) on the skulls of two small carnivores 

 from the well-known Oligocene Phosphorites of Quercy, Central 

 France. Both belong to species named by the late Dr. H. Filhol, 

 the historian of the Quercy fossils. One of the specimens 

 represents Cynodictis intermedins, a member of a genus in some 

 degree intermediate between the civets and mongooses 

 (Viverridce) on the one hand and the dogs {Canidce) on the other; 

 the base of the skull being dog-like, while the brain-case approxi- 

 mates to the civet-type. The dentition of the genus is also to a 

 considerable degree intermediate between the two. It will be 

 remembered that the late Sir William Flower grouped cats, civets, 

 and hyaenas in one subordinal group (^Eluroidea), dogs in a 

 second (Cynoidea), and bears, weasels, and raccoons in a third 

 (Arctoidea). We now know that civets pass imperceptibly into 

 dogs, and dogs into bears, and thus into raccoons. The affinities 

 of Cynodon gracilis, the second species in Fraulein Carlsson's 

 communication, are not discussed by the author. 



Those interested in the past history of the great family of 

 mice and rats (Murida?) will find a store of information with 

 regard to Hungarian fossil forms in a memoir by Prof. L. von 

 Mehely, published in the Ann. Mus. Nat. Hungar. vol. xii. 

 pp. 155-243* with eight plates. Rodents from the Red Crag and 

 Forest-bed of the east coast form the subject of a paper by 

 Mr. M. A. C. Hinton {Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 8, vol. xiii. 

 pp. 186-95), in which a new squirrel is named. 



Reference has been made above to new artiodactyle ungu- 

 lates, including a new genus of the giraffe tribe ; and in this 



