631 
prooticum laterale. GREIL says (p. 1238) that this foramen is cut off 
from what was primarily the incisura sphenotica, that is from the 
present foramen prooticum laterale, but this is clearly an error, as will 
be at once seen by consulting his Figs. 14, Pl. 54, 7, Pl. 55 and 
23, Pl. 61. This is especially evident in Fig. 7, Pl. 55, which gives 
a median view of the chondrocranium, the foramen prooticum laterale 
there being wholly complete and the foramen for the nervus abducens 
not being even seen. In this figure the foramen prooticum laterale 
is shown separated into two parts by a bridge of cartilage that is 
called, in the index lettering of the figure, the pons sphenoticus in- 
ferior, but is referred to in the text (p. 1367) as the processus oticus 
palatoquadrati. The name used in the lettering of the figure is un- 
fortunate, and at first misleading, as is also the appearance of the 
bridge in the figure, for comparison with Fig. 8 of the same plate 
will show that the so-called pons must represent simply the dorsal 
edge of the pars ascendens palatoquadrati, the larger portion of this 
latter cartilage, which lies directly external to, and covers the full 
extent of, the ventral portion of the foramen prooticum laterale, not 
being shown in the figure. An unfortunate typographical error in 
the figure further adds to the difficulty of at first understanding it, 
for that part of the foramen prooticum laterale that lies ventral to 
the so-called pons sphenoticus inferior is wrongly called the foramen 
sphenoticum minus. In the text (p. 1367) it is referred to as the 
“Foramen prooticum der Schädelbasis,”” and the foramen sphenoticum 
minus is said to be hidded from view by the sphenolateral cartilage. 
But it is to be borne in mind, as already explained, that the index 
line here concerned leads to two openings, one of which is the ven- 
tral half of the foramen prooticum laterale and the other the foramen 
prooticum basicraniale (posterior opening of the trigemino-facialis 
chamber), and that it is the former and not the latter to which GREIL 
apparently gives, in the text, the name “Foramen der Schiidelbasis.” 
The other one of the two bands of cartilage above referred to as 
appearing in stage 48 and exceptionally in stage 47 (GruiL, p. 1160), 
is first said by Grem to pass between the two ganglia of the nervus 
trigeminus (nervi ophthalmicus profundus and maxillo-mandibularis 
trigemini) and to separate the foramen praeoticum sive sphenoticum 
into two parts. Later, on the same page of the text, this band of 
cartilage is called by GREIL the septum foraminis sphenotici communis, 
and it is said to separate the foramen sphenoticum commune into a 
