AUTHOR’S ABSTRACT OF THIS PAPER ISSUED 
BY THE BIBLIOGRAPHIC SERVICE, MAY 9 
ON AN ENDOCRANIAL CAST FROM A_ REPTILE, 
DESMATOSUCHUS SPURENSIS, FROM THE 
UPPER TRIASSIC OF WESTERN TEXAS 
E. C. CASE 
University of Michigan 
NINE FIGURES 
As has been shown by the author! in a preliminary paper, the 
remains of Desmatosuchus indicate a new suborder of phyto- 
sauroid reptiles. In cleaning the skull of this specimen it was 
found that the brain cavity was practically undistorted and 
that it was possible to obtain a plastic cast of the endocranium. 
As is well known, any endocranial cast does not reveal the true 
shape of the brain, and this is particularly true of the reptiles 
where the brain is surrounded by a mass of connective tissue or 
by a large space between the pia and dura mater which is crossed 
by fibers of connective tissue. Nevertheless, such casts give 
an idea of the form and relative size of brain and the location 
of the cranial nerves and blood-vessels. Such casts from mam- 
malian skulls are not uncommon in some localities as the Oligo- 
cene deposits of the Big Bad Lands of South Dakota, but very 
few have been found from the lower vertebrates. Even skulls 
so well preserved that the cavity may be cleaned out and casts 
made are not common. Moodie? has figured such a cast from 
the Pennsylvanian deposits of Kansas without assigning any 
taxonomic position to the specimen and has briefly reviewed 
the literature of endocranial casts of fossil forms up to the time 
of his paper. To his publication the reader is referred for a 
historical account of the subject and a discussion of such casts 
as have been found or made. Moodie mentions two papers by 
1 Journal of Geology, vol. 28, no. 6, 1920, p. 524. 
2 Moodie, R. L., Jour. Comp. Neur., vol. 25, no. 2, 1915. 
133 
