1S98.] SCOTT — OX THE SELEXODONT ARTIODACTYLS. 73 



Short or probationary forms of inauguration ceremonies are found 

 in several districts, and a knowledge of them is highly valuable, as 

 exhibiting the various stages through which a youth must pass before 

 he is qualified to take his place as a full man of his tribe. In a 

 different portion of the same tract of country, there is another ele- 

 mentary ceremony known as the Dhalgai, described by me else- 

 where.^ Both the Ngicttan and the Dhalgai are practiced in parts 

 of the geographical area represented as No. 5 on the map of New 

 South Wales hereto appended (Plate V). 



PRELIMINARY NOTE 



ON THE SELENODONT ARTIODACTYLS 



OF THE UINTA FORMATION. 



BY W. B. SCOTT. 



(^Bead March 18, 1898.) 



In 1895, ^^r- J- I^- Hatcher collected for the Princeton Museum 

 some unusually well-preserved specimens of Selenodont Artiodactyls 

 in the Uinta beds of northern Utah. In preparing a monograph 

 upon these forms I have found certain new and undescribed genera 

 which have proved to be of remarkable phylogenetic interest, and 

 the much more complete material now available of genera pre- 

 viously named gives us most welcome information. As the detailed 

 account of these fossils cannot appear for many months, it is desir- 

 able to publish a brief notice of the new forms and of the principal 

 conclusions to which the study of the Uinta Selenodonts has led. 

 One of the most marked changes between the mammalian life of the 

 Bridger and that of the Uinta is in the great increase of the Artio- 

 dactyls in general and of the Selenodonts in particular. In the 

 Bridger beds only two genera at most of the latter group have been 

 described, and remains of even these are very rare ; in the Uinta, 

 on the other hand, Artiodactyls are the most abundant fossils and 

 not less than eight genera of Selenodonts may be determined, while 

 others are indicated by specimens not sufficiently well preserved for 

 description. 



The most interesting and striking result to which the study of the 



^ " The Dhalgai Ceremony," yourn. Anthrop. Inst., Vol. xxvi, pp. 338-340. 



