A Retrospect of Pal<Bontology for Forty Years. 151 



In 1899 Dr. G. Baur reviewed E. T. Newton's memoir on the 

 skull of Scaphognathiis. 



The egg of a large Struthious bird (StriUMolitlms cliersonensis) 

 found in a Post-Tertiary deposit at Kalgan, North China, was 

 described and figured in 1898 by C. E. Eastman, of Cambridge, 

 Massachusetts, United States. As no bones of any ostrich-like bird 

 have been met with in China, we must receive the evidence of the 

 egg alone with some reserve, although the account is very well 

 authenticated. 



Inl900 Eastman described a fossil bird [Gallinuloides Wyoming ensis) 

 from the Middle Eocene, Wyoming, with short beak, stout legs, and 

 about the size of a gallinule, rail, or small coot, and resembling 

 those birds in general characters. 



In 1903 Professor R. Broom figured the palate of Scylacosaiirus 

 Sclateri, a new primitive Theriodont from South Africa, and a new 

 Stegocephalian reptile fi'om Ariwal North, Cape Colony. 



In 1900 Professor Burckhardt gave a description and excellent 

 figures of Hyperodapedon Gordoni from the Trias of Elgin ; and 

 G. A. Bouleuger, in 1903, described the palate of Syperodapedon 

 and of a new genus, Stenometopon, also from the same deposit. 



Baron Francis Nopcsa, jun., had an article in 1903 on the origin 

 of the Mosasaurs, and discussed the question as to whether Mosasaurs 

 were highly specialized aquatic Varanoids, or sprang from the 

 Neocomian Dolichosaurs, or were an offshoot from some ancient 

 Lacertilia. 



Mammalia. — Professor Owen, who was among our earliest 

 contributors, wrote in 1865 on Miolophiis, a new genus of Eocene 

 mammals. A year later the specimen so described by Owen 

 proved to be the type of Flatychcerops Bichardsoni (Charlesworth), 

 (Brit. Assoc. Eep., 1854, p. 80), from the London Clay, Heme 

 Bay (see Geol. Mag., 1866, p. 48), and was claimed for the York 

 Museum, to which it belonged. In 1866 Owen described the lower 

 jaw and teeth of a small Oolitic mammal from the Purbeck beds 

 of Dorset, which he named Stylodon pusillus, probably a small 

 Insectivore. He next wrote in 1869 en Castor and Trogontherium, 

 and gave figures of the limb-bones and teeth of the gigantic beaver 

 of the Norfolk Forest Bed series. This great beaver occui-red also 

 in the Thames Valley (see Geol. Mag., 1902, p. 385) ; in the Depart- 

 ment I'Eure et Loire in France ; at Taganrog, on the Sea of Azof; 

 and near Odessa, on the Black Sea. In the same year he recorded 

 the occurrence of the Elk (Alces palmatus) from the North Tyne 

 Eiver, Northumberland, and from the East London Waterworks 

 at Walthamstow, Essex. A. Smith Woodward, in his " British Fossil 

 Vertebrates" (1890), gave no fewer than thirty-two localities, to 

 which may now be added Keiss, Caithness, and Cleveland, Yorkshire. 

 In 1883 Owen figured and described a newly discovered skull of 

 Thylacoleo from Queensland, Australia, a palatal view of which is given. 



in 1865 Harry Seeley described the cervical vertebras of a whale, 

 PalcBOcetus Sedgiviclcii, from the Boulder-clay of Ely, in the 

 Woodwardian Museum. 



