ON THE MANDIBLE OF ZYGOMATURUS. 



By C. W. De VIS, M.A. 



[Read before the Royal Society of Queensland, October 20th, 1894.1 



Some time ago, as friends around me may remember, it fell 

 to my lot to question the soundness of the judgment of the 

 English palaeontologist. Sir R. Owen, in pronouncing the fossil 

 skull named Zygomaturus, by Macleay, to be but the cranium 

 belonging to his own Notothenum mandibles. As the reasons 

 given on that occasion in favour of my contention were never 

 met with counter arguments of the slightest value, I have waited 

 in patient expectation that my view of the matter would 

 ultimately be confirmed by the course of events. Accordingly 

 this has brought about the anticipated, yet welcome, discovery 

 of a veritable mandible of Zygomaturus, as announced by our 

 President at our last meeting. Mr. Jack was then good enough 

 to say in effect that the jaw in evidence was there to give me an 

 opportunity of forming an opinion of it, but at the moment I 

 was under the impression that the practical absence of both 

 premolar teeth would make it a somewhat difficult matter to 

 form any positive opinion, and naturally I did not venture to 

 express one off'-hand. When leisure permitted, a little study of 

 the jaw brought me an agreeable surprise. I have now no 

 hesitation in saying that it is not by any means the mandible of 

 a Xototherium, and consequently that the skull claimed by Owen 

 for that genus can no longer be refused its original rank as the 

 representative of Macleay's genus. The fact becomes obvious to 



