VERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY IN 1914 633 



Under the name of Testudo gymnesicus, Miss D. M. A. Bate 

 has described (Geo/. Mag. decade 6, vol. i. pp. 100-6) certain 

 remains of a presumed new species of giant land-tortoise from 

 the Pleistocene formation of Menorca. The nature of the 

 remains is, unfortunately, insufficient to afford a clue as to the 

 affinities of the species. The description of a new species of 

 the chelonian genus Stegochelys has been already noted. Of far 

 greater interest is a paper by Mr. Watson (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1914, 

 pp. 1011-20) on Eunotosaurus africanus, of the South African 

 Permian. This remarkable reptile presents many features 

 suggestive of an ancestral type of Chelonian — among them the 

 abnormally expanded and flattened ribs. As the temporal 

 region of the skull is roofed over in the cotylosaurian fashion, 

 it is manifest that if Eunotosaurus really be ancestral to the 

 Chelonia, the roofed skull of the marine turtles will be a 

 primitive and not (as generally supposed) a specialised feature, 

 and consequently that the open skulls of ordinary tortoises have 

 been carved out of a roofed type. The jaws of the extinct 

 genus are toothed. 



Much work has been published during the year on the 

 generalised reptiles of the Permian and Trias of North America 

 and South Africa. Among articles on this subject, reference 

 may be made in the first place to one in the April number of 

 the American Museum Journal for 1914, in which Prof. H. F. 

 Osborn records the acquisition by the American Museum of the 

 fine collection of Permian South African reptiles made by 

 Dr. R. Broom. The author remarks that these reptiles repre- 

 sent the climax of development of the amphibian stock, and the 

 first attempts of vertebrates to progress on land. Reptiles of 

 this early type are common to South Africa, Texas and New 

 Mexico, and part of Russia ; those from the first and third 

 localities being much more nearly related to one another than 

 are those from the second to either. The Texan reptiles, ob- 

 serves the author, never advanced beyond the old st}'le of 

 crawling, with their bodies close to the ground, but in South 

 Africa many of the groups, through a powerful development of 

 the limbs, succeeded in elevating their bodies well above the 

 ground — a distinct advantage which gave the start that cul- 

 minated in the development of mammals. 



In connection with the stratigraphical relationship of the 

 Permian reptiles of South Africa to those of Russia, published 



