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does not belong to man or the monkeys. The second communication 

 comes, as far as I know, from Hkdlicka in 1903 in the same publi- 

 cation from which a sentence was quoted above. About 2000 skulls 

 of Mammals not belonging to the group of man and monkeys were 

 examined by him, and only in three cases, Hedlicka found indica- 

 tions of a sutura parietalis and even these few cases are not yet 

 very convincing, as he himself admits. The most striking case is 

 the one of the superfluous sutura on the parietale of Felis pardalis, 

 a picture of which is given, though only a bad one. Le Double (3) 

 too briefly mentions the sutura parietalis of a skull of Ursus ameri- 

 canus in the Paris Museum. There he finds four parietalia on the 

 right and on the left, separated among them by superfluous sutures. 

 Here too no picture. So the sutura parietalis has been found twice 

 with Ursus americanus (Feassetto and Le Double) and once with 

 Felis pardalis by Hrdlicka. I do not know about any more cases. 

 So in the group of the Carnivora a parietal bone bi-resp. quadri- 

 partitum occurs, though very seldom. Among about 15 skulls of 

 white rats (Mus decumanus var. albus). 1 myself found a case of a 

 parietale bipartitum. So this case, very probably the first, refers to 

 the group of the Rodentia. The picture, added to this, explains 

 everything. On the skull seen from above we observe that the 

 parietal bone on the left shows a distinct sutura, running from the 

 sutura sagittalis to the sut. squamosa with a bend about in the 

 middle of its course. The two parts of the sutura parietalis respec- 

 tively joining the sut. sag. and the sut. squam. form about a right 

 angle. The whole length of this superfluous suture is open and so 

 it is also clearly to be seen on the inside of the skull. The right 

 parietal of the same skull has a sutura parietalis incompleta, also 

 quite open. Further the skull showed nothing particular. The two 

 lacrymalia and one jugal bone are missing. The skull however is a 

 little smaller than the normal skull of the white rat is on the average; 

 especially narrower. Measurings convinced me of this. I have not 

 been able to find out any other abnormalities, except that, as we see, 

 the sutura frontalis does not run right into the sut. sagittalis, but 

 makes a bend exactly at the point where it meets the sutura coronalis. 

 I have never seen this at any other skull of a rat, and this abnor- 

 mality in course of the skull of a mammal is generally very rare, 

 except with Erinaceus europeus where it seems to be almost the rule. 

 Ossicula Wormiana which otherwise are so often found together with 



