558 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



In my review for last year reference was made to a pre- 

 liminary communication by Dr. Schlosser on vertebrate remains 

 from the Lower Tertiary of the Fayum district of Egypt. A 

 fuller digest of the material on which the former communi- 

 cation is based appears in Beitrage f. Pal. u. Geol. Oster.-Ungar. 

 u. Orients, vol. xxiv. pp. 51-161, in which the new species 

 are more fully described, with, in some instances, a revision 

 of their systematic position. The genus Parapithecus, for ex- 

 ample which was at first included among the man-like apes 

 (Simiidce), is now referred to a distinct family {P arapithecidce) , 

 characterised by a dentition differing from that of both an- 

 thropoids and lemuroids, the formula being i. T , c. y, p. §, m. f. 

 The genus Moeripithecus (which is evidently allied to Osborn's 

 Aphidium) may belong to the same family, although, on the 

 other hand, it may be related to the North American Eocene 

 genus Anaptomorphus and thus form an ancestral type of the 

 American monkeys but if so, its dental formula, instead of the 

 above, must have been i. §, c. Tj p. f, m. f. The genus Metoldo- 

 botes (or Metolbodotes), originally included in the Primates, is 

 transferred to the lnsectivora, in which it occupies an un- 

 defined position. Special interest attaches to the occurrence 

 in such early strata of remains of a large bat, for which the 

 name Provampyrops is proposed. 



In North America Mr. J. C. Merriam has published a 

 paper {Bull. Dep. Geol. Calif. University, vol. vi. pp. 403-12) on 

 the Tertiary mammal-beds of Virgin Valley and Thousand 

 Creek, North-Western Nevada. Several new species are 

 described ; but the chief interest of the paper is the reference 

 of certain supposed Tertiary antelopes with twisted horns to 

 the same family {Antilocapridce) as the American prongbuck. 

 From the shape of their horns these ruminants {Ilingoceros 

 and Sphenophallus) were at first supposed to be related to the 

 bushbuck group {Tragelaphus, etc.) of Africa ; but on distri- 

 butional grounds, this was very improbable, while their 

 relationship to the prongbuck is just what ought to occur. 

 Both extinct genera are believed to be derivatives from the 

 earlier Merycodus. 



There seems but little to record in regard to the palaeon- 

 tology of rodents. Miss L. Kellogg {Bull. Dep. Geol. Calif. 

 University, vol. vi. pp. 401-2) has, however, described a new 

 beaver from the Tertiary of the Kettleman Hills, California, 



