514 lietnens — Professor E. Ray Lankester's Extinct Animals. 



The circle of bony plates, similar to those found in the eyes of birds, 

 gives an expression of interest which few fossils can boast of" (p. 6). 



The author tells of the ' Mammoth ' whose skeleton was found 

 in frozen soil in Siberia, by Adams, a century ago, now in the 

 St. Petersburg Museum, upon whose bones, when first discovered, 

 the flesh and skin were still preserved, but much of the soft parts 

 had been devoured by the wolves, foxes, and other animals, who 

 feasted on 'preserved meat for weeks, before the skeleton (with what 

 little remained of the soft parts) was transported from the banks of 

 the Lena to St. Petersburg. 



But the latest discovery of a Siberian Mammoth was made in 

 1901, in the province of Jakutsk, where an entire skeleton of 

 Elephas primigtnius, clothed in flesh, hair, and hide, was unearthed 

 on the banks of the Beresowka, a tributary of the Kolyma, and was 

 successfully carried to St. Petersburg, the skeleton being set up in the 

 Academy Museum, and also the skin, which has been prepared by 

 a taxidermist, softened and stuffed, like that of a modern animal, 

 in the attitude of death, surrounded by the morass in which it made 

 its last struggle (see Geol. Mag., 1903, pp. 361-363, PI. XVIII). 



A considerable space is devoted to the recent discoveries made by 

 Professor Amalitzky, of Warsaw, of a whole series of skeletons of 

 Theromorph reptiles (closely similar to those from the rocks of 

 Cape Colony) from the banks of the Northern Dwina, near Archangel 

 in North Russia. He has not yet finished his excavations nor 

 published the results, but has allowed Professor Lankester to refer to 

 them and to show the photographs. The remains were found in 

 immense nodular masses harder than the soft Permian strata forming 

 the cliff's in which they lie imbedded. These nodules had been long 

 used for mending the roads, and when broken open displayed the 

 bones of reptiles. Professor Amalitzky had them dug out and 

 conveyed to the University of Warsaw, where they are being 

 gradually worked out and mounted, the Imperial Academy of 

 St. Petersburg allowing him a thousand pounds a year towards the 

 expenses. There were many skeletons of Pariasaurus, like that 

 obtained by Professor Seeley from the Karroo Beds in South Africa, 

 and several of a huge carnivorous reptile (Inostransevia) allied to 

 Lycosaurus, also found in Cape Colony. 



Professor Lankester points out the interesting fact of the presence, 

 even in these early Triassic times, of the two types, the carnivorous 

 and herbivorous dwelling together, the bloodsucker and its victim, 

 just as in Jurassic times the two types of Dinosauria occui*, and at 

 the present day the Carnivora and Herbivora exist side by side iu 

 Africa and India and indeed over a far wider extent of the earth. 



The lecturer gives an interesting account of the Old Silurian and 

 Devonian fishes about which he formerly contributed a monograph 

 to the Paleeontographical Society. He also discourses upon the 

 Pearly Nautilus, the Cuttle-fish, and their ancient allies the 

 Belemnites and Ammonites, many figures of which are given. 

 The Trilobites, and next the giant Merostomata, the Pterygotvs, 

 Eurypterus, Stylonurus, Slimoina, and their relatives the King-crabs 



