24O REPORTS ON INVESTIGATIONS AND PROJECTS. 



PALEONTOLOGY. 



Case, Ermine C, State Normal School, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Grant 

 No. 242. Completion of a monograph on the Pelycosaurian order 

 of Permian reptiles. (For first report see Year Book No. 2, 

 p. xxxvii.) $800. 



Report. — The completed monograph contains 286 pages, 33 plates, 

 and 76 text-figures. Over 175 pen and wash drawings and diagrams 

 have been used in the illustration of the material. The material 

 studied is that of the Cope collection in the American Museum of 

 Natural History in New York and the collection of the University 

 of Chicago ; also some types in the Marsh collection in the Museum 

 of Yale University. In the pursuance of the work the author spent 

 the summer of 1905 in New York at the American Museum of 

 Natural History, and during the spring and fall made several trips 

 to Chicago to study material there and to consult references in the 

 library. A considerable quantity of the Chicago material was shipped 

 to Milwaukee to be photographed and drawn under the oversight of 

 the author. 



The name of the monograph has been changed to ' ' The Pelyco- 

 sauria of North America." The taxonomy of the suborder has 

 been cleared up and the classification placed on a basis of develop- 

 mental features. The probable origin, the development, and the 

 culmination of the suborder have been made out and the progressive 

 changes in structure during the progress have been described and 

 figured. One new family, two new subfamilies, one new genus, and 

 five new species have been described. Several species described 

 from fragmentary material have been shown to be synonyms. 

 Nearly complete osteological descriptions of several genera have 

 been given and a complete restoration of the long-spined form, 

 Dimetrodon, has been worked out. The skull of the genus Edapho- 

 saurus has been redescribed from the newly cleaned specimen and 

 its probably ancestral relation to the Placodontia demonstrated. The 

 geological and geographical relations of the suborder have been 

 brought out and their possible continuance into the Triassic sug- 

 gested. The Pelycosauria have been demonstrated to be a highly 

 specialized, primitive side branch of the early Rhyncocephalia. 

 Bathygnathus borealis has been shown to be a true pelycosaur and not 

 a Triassic dinosaur, so the beds in the vicinity of New London, 

 Prince Edward Island, are shown to be Permian, in consonance with 

 the rest of the island, and not Triassic outliers, as the Canadian 

 geologists have been compelled to suggest from the evidence of the 

 supposed dinosaur. 



