268 NOTES AND COMMENTS [apkil 



ally distinct from Mylodon, and also that it has now probably ceased 

 to exist. After mentioning that it might possibly have escaped the 

 notice of the scattered white population of Patagonia, he adds that " it 

 is absolutely impossible to think that this animal, if it was still among 

 living beings, could have eluded the sharp eyes of the native Indians. 

 Even if it had exclusively nocturnal habits, and hid itself during the 

 daytime in the most desolate places, the hunting Indians must have 

 come across it now and then, and they must certainly have observed 

 its tracks, its traces where it had broken off branches and twigs when 

 feeding, its scratchings or diggings in the earth, its excrements, etc." 



In all the above there is doubtless much of truth ; but, on the 

 other hand, it must be remembered that a very large proportion of the 

 naturalists who saw Dr. Moreno's specimen were inclined to regard it 

 as of very recent origin indeed. And if the creature has been alive a 

 few years ago, there is a strong probability that it still survives. 

 With regard to its generic distinction from the mylodonts of the 

 Pampean, it may be mentioned that many of these lived on to a 

 comparatively late epoch, and also that most, if not all, of the modern 

 genera of armadillos were already in existence during the Pampean 

 period. This being so, it does seem, primd facie, somewhat strange 

 that Neomylodon should be entirely of post-Pampean origin, more 

 especially if it is now either extinct or on the verge of becoming so. 



Supposed Mesozoic Mammals from Patagonia. 



The preliminary results of Dr. Santiago Roth's discovery of so-called 

 Mesozoic mammals in Patagonia, to which we referred some time ago 

 (vol. xiii. p. 439), are rather disappointing. They appear in the 

 Bevista of the La Plata Museum (vol. ix. pp. 381-388), and a detailed 

 memoir is promised later in the Analcs of the same museum. The 

 remains were found by Dr. Roth, associated with bones of Dinosaurian 

 reptiles, in no less than three distinct formations. In one place, 

 moreover, a marine band was intercalated between the mammal-bearing 

 deposits, and this contained casts of shells which are said to occur in 

 the undoubted Cretaceous of Brazil. The mammals themselves, 

 however, are totally different from those primitive types which we have 

 hitherto known to be of Mesozoic age. If they were found in the 

 northern hemisphere, indeed, and if their exact date were unknown, we 

 should not be surprised if mammalogists claimed them to be late 

 Tertiary. Nine new genera are founded, all apparently most closely 

 related to the aberrant hoofed animals which are so characteristic of 

 the Tertiary formations of South America, It seems to us more 

 likely that Dinosaurs survived in the Tertiary fauna of the South 

 American continent, than that highly specialised Ungulata were already 



