VERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY IN 191 1 573 



Abhandlangen, vol. xiv. pt. 1, art. 2), who concludes that these 

 reptiles form a sterile branch of the Pseudosuchia (Aetosauria), 

 which became separated therefrom and never had any direct 

 connexion with the Crocodilia, although they were included 

 in that order by Huxley. 



Several important communications relating to the so-called 

 enaliosaurian reptiles (plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs) appeared 

 during the year. In the first of these Dr. C. W. Andrews {Ann. 

 S. Africa Mus. vol. vii. pp. 309-22) describes the skull and 

 other portions of the skeleton of a plesiosaur {Plesiosaurus 

 capensis) from the Uitenhage beds of Cape Colony. The species, 

 which belongs to the group of small forms represented in the 

 European Wealden by P. degenhardti and P. valdensis, is the 

 first plesiosaur known from South Africa; and this record of 

 the occurrence of the group in that country is of special interest, 

 in view of the possibility that the Sauropterygia may have taken 

 origin from a stock more or less nearly related to the theroceph- 

 alous anomodonts or carnivorous mammal-like reptiles of the 

 South African Permian. 



In the second — written unfortunately in Russian — Mr. N. 

 Bologabow describes in a memoir issued by the Geological 

 Cabinet of Moscow University for 191 1 (412 pp., 16 pis.) an 

 extensive series of plesiosaurian remains from the Mesozoic 

 formations of Russia. Many of these are referable to previously 

 known forms but the author describes as new species of Thau- 

 matosaurus, Cryptoclidus, Murcenosaurus, Colymbosaurus, Elas- 

 mosaurus (3), Polycotylus (4), and Cimoliosaurus. 



In a third communication Dr. E. Fraas, 1 when describing 

 {Mitt. Kgl. Nat-Kabinett Stuttgart, No. 77) a finely preserved 

 skeleton of an embryonic or newly born specimen of Ichthyosaur- 

 us quadriscissns from the Upper Lias of Holzmaden, Wurttem- 

 berg, in which the outline of the body and fins is preserved, gives 

 an account of the evolution of the tail-fin in the ichthyosaurs. That 

 the specimen on which this investigation was based is extremely 

 young is rendered evident by the great relative size of the head, 

 which is equal to one-third the entire length, whereas in the 

 adult it is less than one-fifth. The earliest known type of tail- 

 fin in the ichthyosaurs occurs in Mixosaurus nordenskjoeldi from 



1 The abstract of this paper (as is also the case in several other instances) is 

 taken, with certain modifications and by the editor's permission, from one com- 

 municated by myself to Nature. 



