1 62 SECTION B. VERTEBRATA. 



facilitate the preparation of catalogues of types and their places of 

 preservation. 



Paleontology has been called an exact science, but its records 

 up to the present time do not bear out this statement. If, as I 

 believe, it will yet be worthy of such a distinction, one means of its 

 advancement will be for those who represent it to select better type 

 specimens, and preserve them more carefully. 



In all branches of Natural Science, type specimens are the 

 lights that mark the present boundaries of knowledge. They 

 should be, therefore, not will-o'-the-wisps, leading unwary votaries 

 of science astray, but fixed beacon lights to guide and encourage 

 investigators in their search for new truth. 



3. A SHORT Demonstration on the " Urodelen der 

 Alten Welt." 



By Dr WolterstorfF. 



An exhibition of a series of water-colour drawings of Urodeles 

 illustrative of a comprehensive work by Dr Wolterstorff, which 

 will appear in the BibliotJieca Zoologica. 



The author wished to enlist the sympathy of zoologists, he 

 being especially desirous of living, or well preserved specimens of 

 Urodeles from Southern Europe and Eastern Asia. No remarks. 



4. On Reptilian Affinities in the Temporal 

 region of the Monotreme-skull. 



By Dr J. F. Van Bemmelen. 



Wlien inspecting the skull of Monotremes, and comparing it to 

 that of Reptiles, with a view to discover Sauropsidan affinities, my 

 attention was immediately drawn by the fact that the temporal 

 region, both in Ornithorhynchus and in Echidna, is pierced by 

 a canal from before backwards, just over the glenoid cavity for the 

 under-jaw. This canal reminded me vividly of the passage between 

 quadrate and quadratojugal in Sphenodon, and still more of the 

 perforation in (or rather covered by) the squamosum of the 

 Anomodont Ptychognathus declivis (Zittel, Handb. der Palaeont. 

 p. 358). In vain I looked through the recent literature about 

 Monotremes, I could not even trace a simple mentioning of the 

 peculiar structure in question, much less any comparison of it to 

 corresponding arrangements in Reptilian skulls. Quite the con- 

 trary : in Gegenbaur's recently-published Manual of the Compara- 

 tive Anatomy of Vertebrates I met with the following passage : 



" In its outer formation, the cartilaginous (Mammalian) skull 

 possesses relations to that of Amphibia, and partly also to Reptiles 

 (Tortoises) in so far as only one bony bar occurs: the infra-orbital. 

 Though further differentiations are developed from this bar at the 



