[lambe] progress of VERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY 27 



garded by Lydekker as a Theropodous dinosaur allied to the Anchi- 

 sauridse. 



In his description of the above vertebra Lydekker remarks that 

 " the especial interest of the specimen is the evidence which it affords 

 as to the path by which the generic types of dinosaurs common to the 

 old and new world may have passed from one hemisphere to the other." 

 The type specimen is preserved in the museum of Science and Art, 

 Dublin. 



14. Tertiaky bird. — The only fossil bird, known from this coun- 

 try, older than the Pleistocene, was described by Cope in 1894, from 

 the upper part of a tarsometatarsus obtained by Dr. G. M. Dawson at 

 Carmanah point, Vancouver island, in a bed of indurated clay of 

 Tertiary age. For the specimen Cope proposed the name Cyphornis 

 magnus, the probable affinity of the genus being regarded as with the 

 order Steganopodes. According to Cope, the characters of Cyphornis 

 indicate the age of the bed to be Eocene or Oligocène. Also according 

 to the same author "the presumed affinity with the Steganopodes indi- 

 cates natatory habits, and probable capacity for flight. Should this 

 power have been developed in Cyphornis magnus, it will have been much 

 the largest bird of flight thus far known." 



15. The Oligocène pauna. — The vertebrate life of Oligocène 

 times is revealed to us in the 1883-84 collections of Messrs. K. Gr. 

 McConnell and T. C. Weston from the Cypress hills, Assiniboia, de- 

 scribed by Professor Cope. The fauna consists of fishes, turtles and 

 mammals, the last, as might be expected, greatly preponderating, as 

 with the Eocene began that dominance of the Mammalia which has 

 continued to the present day. 



The fishes are Actinopterygians, Protospondyli, the dominant fishes 

 of the Jurassic period and Nematognathi, the Siluroid fishes. The 

 former are represented by two species of the family of Amiidse, Amia 

 macrospofidyla and A. whiteavesiana, each known from a single vertebra, 

 the latter by three species of the Siluridœ, Rhineastes rhœas, Amiurus 

 cancellatus and A. maconnelli, also described from vertebra?. 



The turtles Stylemys nebrascensis and Trionyx leucopotamicus are 

 represented by shell fragments. The former species is a Cryptodire 

 belonging to the Testudinidœ, the latter a river turtle of the family of 

 Trionychidte. It is desirable that better material be secured of these 

 interesting forms. 



The mammals of this period belong to the orders Ungulata, Ancy- 

 lopoda, Eodentia and Carnivora, with a number of species of Perisso- 

 dactyles and Artiodactyles among the Ungulates. 



Considering first the Perissodactyla or odd-toed hoofed animals, 

 the horses are represented by Mesohippus westoni, the titanotheres by 



