Dec. 13, 1883] 



NA TURE 



165 



and of a number of Demonstrators and Assistants. Plans for 

 new buildings for Comparative Anatomy, Botany, and Mechanism 

 are to be obtained. 



Dr. Besant will lecture on Analysis (Schedules II. and III.) 

 during two terms ; Mr. Pendlebury on Analytical Optics, 

 next term, and on Lapl.ace's and Beisel's Functions in the 

 Easter Term ; Mr. Webb on Elementary Rigid Dynamics in the 

 Easter Term, and on Higher Dynamics in the Long Vacation. 



Inasmuch as the Uuiverity Table at the Naples Zoological 

 Sation has been constantly occupied by students of animal 

 morphology, and there are students mphy^iology and botany for 

 whom study at Naples is very desirable, it is proposed to extend 

 the advantages of s udy to students of biology generally. Dr. 

 Dohrn has unofficially expressed his willingiie-s to receive, when 

 desired, two members of the University at a time for a payment 

 of 100/. instead of 75/. a year. 



It is hoped that the new Biological and Physical Laboratory, 

 connected with Newnham College, which is being fitted up in 

 Downing Place, may be ready for uie by the beginning of next 

 term. The nearness of the site to the new museums \vill enable 

 students of Neivnham to attend professors' lectures there and 

 carry out practical study at the laboratory with the least possible 

 loss of time. 



With regard to the statement made last week that " St. 

 John's does not as yet open any of its advanced lectures 

 to other than its own students," we are informed that the 

 advanced lectures have for a long time been open to members of 

 the University, and lectures are provided in some subjects not 

 lectured on elsewhere. The sentence in the report was to the 

 effect that the list for next year was not yet issued. It has now 

 appeared, and no less than six courses of open lectures are 

 announced for the remainder of the academical year. 



New Zealand. — The Queen has been pleased to direct Supple- 

 mentary Letters Patent to be passed under the Greal Seal granting; 

 and declaring that the Degrees of Bachelor and Doctor in Science 

 granted or conferred liy the University of New Zealand shall be 

 recognised as Academic distinctions and rewards of merit, and 

 be entitled to rank, precedence, and consideration in the United 

 Kingdom and in the Colonies and Possessions of the Crown 

 throughout the world, as freely as if the said Degrees had been 

 conferred by any University of the United Kingdom. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 



The American Naturalist for November, 1S83, contains: — 

 ThePre-cambrian rocks of the Alp;, by T. Sterry Hunt. — The 

 achenial hairs of Townsendia, by G. Macloskie.— The hiberna- 

 cula of herbs, by Aug. |. Foerste. — The hair-sac mite of the 

 pig, by Prof. K. Ramsay Wright. — The geology of Central 

 Australia, by Edward B. Sanger. — The number of segments in 

 the head of winged insects, by A. S. Packard, jun. 



Gegenbaur's Morphologisches yahrbuch, Bd. ix. , Heft I, con- 

 tains: — Researches on marine Rhipidoglossa, by Dr. Bela 

 Haller, No. i (plates i to 7). — On developmental relationships 

 between the spinal marrow and the spinal canal, by Dr. W. 

 Pfitzner. — Contribution to the comparative anatomy of the 

 posterior limbs in fishes, part 3, Ceratodus, by Dr. M. Davidofif 

 (plates 8, 9). — On some anatomical marks of distinction 

 between the house dog and the wolf, by Prof. H. Landois. 



Riviita Scientifico-Industriale, October 23, 1SS3. — On the 

 influence of static electricity on the needle, by Prof. Michele 

 Cagnassi. — Experiments with the radiometer (continued), by 

 Prof. Constantino Rovelli. — On the conditions which determine 

 the least and greatest deviation of a ray passing through a prism, 

 by Prof. G. Buzzolini. — On the employment of copperas in 

 testing iodides blended with alcoholic bromides and chlorides, 

 by Dr. Alfredo Cavazzi. — On the advantages that may be de- 

 rived by medical jurisprudence from entomological studies, 

 especially in determining the approximate date and cause of 

 death, by P. Megnin. — Note on the Titanophasnti fayoli, anew 

 fossil insect f jund in the carboniferous formations of Commentry, 

 AUier, by the Editor. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 

 London 

 Royal Society, November 15. — " On SceparnoJoii ranisayi," 

 a fossil mammal from Australian Pleistocene deposits, by Prof. 



Owen. The first indication of this species was transmitted to 

 the author, in iSSi, in the form of casts of detached teeth, all 

 representing an anterior incior, the most entire specimen being 

 5i inches in length, 35 mm. in breadth, with uniform thick- 

 ness of 8 mm., the tooth, slightly curved, with periistent 

 pulp-cavity at the base, and a sharp chisel-shaped cuttinLr margin 

 at the opposite end. The author deferred notice of this indica- 

 tion in hope uf receiving a specimen of the tooth itself. This was 

 needed in order to make the requisite microscopical researches as 

 to structure, the wombat and some small ro^ients alone possess- 

 ing, in Australia, evergrowing scalpriform incisors, but markedly 

 differing in shape as well as size from the fo.ssil. Prof. Owen 

 was favoured by receiving, in the present year, from the bed of 

 King's Creek, (Queensland, a tooth, identical in character with 

 the cast, and the present paper records the results of his scrutiny 

 of structure. They led to the conclusion of the former existence 

 in Australia of a mammal with rodent upper incisors, as in the 

 wombat, but of distinct shape, and indicative of a species as 

 large as a tapir. The microscopic characters of both dentine 

 and enamel weighed in favour of the marsupial affinities ot 

 Sceparnodon. The author referred to the fact that the first 

 indication of the genus Thylacoleo was a single carnassial tooth 

 submitted to him in 1S33 by Sir Thomas Mitchell, and a similar 

 evidence of Diprotodon was an incisi>r brought by the same 

 explorer from the caves he hid discovered in the district named, 

 after the Colonel's old commander, " Wellington Valley." 



At the same meeting Prof. Owen gave a minute description 

 of a fosil humerus which had been transmitted to him by Mr. 

 Ramsay, F.L.S., who had discovered it in the breccia cave in 

 " Wellington Valley. " The bone was partially mutilated, but 

 gave sufficient evidence of its having come from a Monotreme, 

 with so close a conformity, save in size, w ith that of the existing 

 Echidna hyotrix, as to lead to its reference to an extinct species 

 of that genus. It, however, far surpassed it in size, exceeding, 

 as it did, the corresponding bone in the larger Monotrematous 

 ant-eaters \^hich have been found living in New Guinea. 

 Drawings of the subjects of both ) aper- accompanied the text. 



Geological Society, November 21.— J. W. Hulke, F.R.S., 

 president, in the chair. — ihe following communications were 

 read : — On the skull and dentition of a Triassic mammal [Trily- 

 lodon longitvns, Ow.) from South Africa, Ijy Prof. Owen, C.B., 

 F.R.S. The specimen described in this paper formed part of a 

 collection containing remains of some of the known South- 

 African Triassic reptilian genera, and agreed with them in its 

 mode of fossilisation. It was submitted to the author by Dr. 

 Exton, of Bloemfontcin. The specimen is a nearly entire skull, 

 wanting only the hinder part, ai.d it mt-a'^ures about 3^ inches in 

 length, from the broken end of the pariet.il crest to the point of 

 the united premaxillaries. The upper surface shows the anchy- 

 losed calvarial portions of the panetals, and the frontal bones 

 divided by a suture ; the contiguous angles of these four bones 

 are cut off, so as to leave an aperture, occupied by matrix, which 

 may be a fontanelle, or a pineal or parietal foramen. The 

 frontals form the upper borders of the orbits, which are bounded 

 in front by the lacrymal and malar bones, and \\ere not com- 

 pleted behind l)y bone. Each frontal is narrowed to a point at 

 the suture between the nasal and maxillary. The nasals are 

 narrow, but widen in front to form the upper border of the 

 exterior nostril, which is terminal, and is completed by the 

 premaxillaries. The maxillaries are widened posteriorly, then 

 constricted, and again wide.ied before their junction with the 

 intermaxillaries. The teeth include a pair of large round 

 incisors, broken off close to the sockets and showingalarge pulp- 

 cavity, surrounded by a complete ring of dentine, which is 

 covered by a thin coat of enamel on the front and sides. At 

 2 mm. behind each of these teeth is the socket of a smaller 

 premaxillary tooth ; this tooth apparently had a thin wall and a 

 pulp-cavity relatively larger than in the anterior tooth. It is 

 separated by a ridged diastema from the series of six molar teeth 

 on each side, the first of v\hich has a sub-triangular crown with 

 the base applied to the second tooth. The latter and the four 

 following teeth are nearly similar, subquadrate in form, with the 

 crowns "imi reused by a pair of antero-posterior grooves, 

 dividing the grinding surface into three similarly disposed ridges, 

 and each ridge is subdivided by cross notches into tubercles. Of 

 these there are, in the second to the fourth molar inclusive, four 

 tubercles on the mid-ridge, three on the irmer ridge, and two on 

 the outer ridge." The author discu-sed the relations of this new 

 form of mammal, especially as indicated by the structure of the 

 teeth, which he showed to resemble those of Microkstes, from 



