38 Dr. G. Baur on Meiolaiiia. 



living form of tlie Emydida^, the " wood-tortoise " {Clemmi/fi 

 i'nsculjyfaj Le C), is a very good support of the correctness of 

 my view. 



3. " Dr. Baur has arrived at some curious misconceptions 

 from not examining sufficient material, and, what is still less 

 excusable, by not carefully perusing the standard works on 

 the osteology of Eeptiles. Thus, for example, he entirely 

 ignores the cranial structure of C/ieh/s, the type, in a syste- 

 matic sense, of the Pleurodira, which has been figured by 

 Cuvier, Wagler, Briihl, Hoffmann, and Mivart. He will 

 find, by refeiring to Chelys, that liis cliaracter of 'the quad- 

 rate connected with the baslsphenoid, sometimes with the 

 basioccipital,' falls to the ground." 



I should say that Mr. Boulenger knows wliat T intended to 

 express by the words '' the quadrate connected with the basl- 

 sphenoid^^ — it was the fact, that in all Pleurodira the jptery- 

 ijoids do not separate the quadrate and hasisphenoid, as in the 

 Cryj^todira. This fact I defined by the words, not a})plicable 

 to Chilys, " the quadrate connected with the basisphenoid." 

 But Che/ys makes no exception from the other Pleurodira ; 

 even here the j)tery(joids do not separate the quadrate and hasi- 

 sphenoid. But these bones are separated by the petrosal 

 nearly in the same way as in Pelomedusa and Hydroniedusa 

 (Peters), in which forms a small connexion between quadrate 

 and basisphenoid still exists. I said that Mr. Boulenger 

 knows what 1 wanted to express by the words " the quadrate 

 connected with the basisphenoid." I made him acquainted 

 personally with the new character of the Pleurodira, found in 

 the pterygoids ; besides that, every body can see what 1 

 meant if he reads the words immediately following the above 

 statement — " in all the Cryptodira and the Trionychoidca the 

 pterygoids extend between these elements." 



It was a wrong exj^ression, hut 7iot ignorance ! 



4. The absence in the Pleurodira of the descending pro- 

 cesses of the pra^frontals, which connect the vomer, is a cha- 

 racter of no great importance according to Mr. Boulenger. 



a. That the connexion between the vomer and the " prse- 

 frontals does not exist in the living Pleurodira is perliaps due 

 to the fact that the vomer is absent in the Pelomedusidai." 



To that 1 answer with the fact that the Cretaceous 

 Bothremys^ Leidy, has a very strong vomer, but no connexion 

 between the vomer and the prefrontals. 



h. " In Chelys and Chelodina a complete bony orbito-nasal 

 septum is formed by connexion of the prsefrontals with the 

 palatines." 



1 cannot find a " complete hony orlito-nasal septula " in 



