On some undei^r.rihed VAVAi']'u\-ji. 313 



most Mammalian of all the lleptilia. Tliis fact is alone suffi- 

 cient to discredit Dr. Kiikcnllial's theory. 



Dr. Kiikenthal seems to credit tiie advocates of primitive 

 mono))Jiyo(lontism with supposing that the present single 

 dentition of the Cetacea is an unmodified survival of the 

 earliest mono))hjodont condition ; but this is not the case, 

 that view having never been taken, so far as I know, by 

 any one but Baume, and by him on the basis of a wholly- 

 different theory. I myself* have supposed the ancestors of 

 the Cetacea to have passed through a more or less diphyo- 

 dont stage, and to have afterwards lost one of their two sets 

 of teeth. 



Dr. Kiikenthal is to be congratulated on the brilliant 

 results that have attended his investigations, and I trust that 

 lie will continue his efforts to find out the true homologies of 

 the different teeth, and thereby facilitate the work of those 

 who for systematic purposes need to have correct names under 

 which these important organs can be compared and described. 



XLIX. — On some undescrihed Qic^iWdtiQ, with Sijnonymical 

 Notes. By W. L. Distant. 



I HAVE had submitted to me for identification a number 

 of species belonging to this family contained in the collec- 

 tions of the South-African Aluseum at Cape Town and 

 the Australian Museum at Sydney. The new species from 

 these sources and others which I have recently received 

 are here described, with a few synonymical notes and 

 corrections resulting from some perfunctory and hasty work in 

 other quarters. The legacy of bewilderment left to students 

 of the Cicadida3 by the late Mr. Francis Walker is already so 

 sufficing that it is earnestly to be hoped that such difficulties 

 be not increased by other writers unfamiliar with the 

 family. Like all other zoological groups Cicadidte require 

 study, but have, unfortunately perhaps, been as much 

 obscured in printed matter as has proved to be the fate of 

 most families of the lihynchota. 



(7/C42)/xV.E. 



Paecilopsaltria Trimeni, sp. n. 

 Plead and pronotum fulvous and moderately pilose, meso- 

 * T. c. p. 4."')8. 

 Ann. cC- Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 6, Vol. ix. 23 



