572 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



The angulated outer and rounded inner surface of the terminal 

 segment of the second hind toe in Gryponyx, Massospondylus 

 and yEtonyx indicate that the investing horny claw had an 

 edge adapted for combing or scraping and it is accord- 

 ingly suggested that it was employed for cleaning the skin 

 and scales. If this be so, the dermal covering was probably 

 unlike that of crocodiles or lizards and the scales may have 

 been long and narrow, with intervals of soft, bare skin be- 

 tween them, as such a skin would require cleansing with the 

 claw after the reptile had been hunting on muddy banks of 

 lakes. 



Some important work has been done on crocodilians during 

 the year, Mr. C. W. Gilmore having described (Proc. U.S. Nat. 

 Mus. vol. xli. pp. 297-302), under the new generic and specific 

 name of Brachychampsa montana, a crocodilian skull from the 

 Cretaceous of Montana. This specimen indicates an alligator- 

 like species distinguished from other members of the alligator- 

 group by the absence of a posterior expansion of the hind 

 part of the premaxillae to roof over the front of the nasal 

 chamber. There are fourteen pairs of upper teeth, five of which 

 are borne by the premaxillary or anterior jaw-bones. 



Still greater interest attaches to the description by Mr. 

 Armand Thevenin {Annates de Pale'ontologie, vol. vi. pp. 95-108, 

 pi. iii.) of the skull of a long-snouted crocodilian from the 

 Eocene Phosphates of Tunisia. It appears that in 1893 Mr. P. 

 Thomas gave the name Crocodilus phosphaticus to a crocodilian 

 from the same deposits, while in the following year the name 

 Dyrosaurus thevestensis was proposed by Mr. Pomel for the 

 same reptile ; the generic designation being derived from the 

 district of Dyr. The complete skull shows that the reptile, 

 of which the name will be Dyrosaurus phosphaticus, is closely 

 allied to the Jurassic Steneosaurus and therefore indicates 

 the survival of the Mesozoic type into the Eocene. The 

 species also occurs in the Sudan and German East Africa. 



Mr. H. E. Sauvage has contributed to the Bull. Soc. Acad. 

 de Boulogne-sur-mer, vol. ix., a note of ten pages on the local 

 occurrence of the giant marine crocodiles of the genus 

 Dacosaurus, remains of which are common to the Kimerid- 

 gian and Portlandian of the Boulonnais. 



The affinities of the Parasuchia (Parasuchus, Phytosaurus, 

 etc.) are discussed at length by Prof. F. Huene {Geol. u. Pal. 



