Reviews—Prof. Fritsch—Fauna of Gas-coal. 175 
A second generic form is named Geikia Elginensis. This is a 
skull nearly allied to Ptychognathus, Owen, but is distinguished by 
its shorter muzzle and the entire absence of teeth ; the upper part of 
the skull, between the orbits, is also peculiar, forming a deep valley 
open anteriorly, with a ridge on each side, the anterior end of 
which forms a large prominence above and in front of the orbit. 
The occiput has only one (the lower) post-temporal fossa open on 
each side. The maxilla is produced into a tooth-like prominence, 
which occupies a similar position to the tusks of Gordonia; but the 
bone is too thin to have supported a tooth, and in all probability 
it was covered by a horny beak. The lower jaw has a strong 
symphysis, a distinct lateral vacuity, and the oral margin, at the 
front of each ramus, bears a rugose prominence. 
Elginia mirabilis is the name proposed for the skull of a Reptile, 
which, on account of the extreme development of horns and spines, 
reminds one of the living Lizards Moloch and Phrynosoma. The 
exterior of this skull is covered in by bony plates, the only apertures 
being the pair of nostrils, the orbits, and the pineal fossa. The 
surfaces of the bones are deeply pitted, as in Crocodiles and Laby- 
rinthodonts. The horns and spines, which vary from Lin. to nearly 
din. in length, are found upon nearly every bone of the exterior. 
The development of the epiotics and the arrangement of the external 
bones resemble more the Labyrinthodont than the Reptilian type of 
structure, while the palate, on the other hand, conforms more nearly 
to the Lacertilian type, and, with the exception that the pterygoids 
are united in front of the pterygoid vacuity, agrees with the palate of 
Iguana and Sphenodon. There are four longitudinal ridges along the 
palate, some of which seem to have carried teeth. The oral margin 
was armed with a pleurodont dentition, there being on each side 
about twelve teeth with spatulate crowns, laterally compressed and 
serrated. With the exception of the smaller number of the teeth, 
we have here, on a large scale, a repetition of the dentition of Iguana. 
This peculiar skull seems to show affinities with both Laby- 
rinthodonts and Lacertilians, and is unlike any living or fossil form ; 
its nearest, though distant, ally apparently being the Pareiasaurus 
from the Karoo Beds of South Africa. 
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I.—Fauna per GASKOHLE UND DER KALKSTEINE DER PrRM-FoRMA- 
tion Boumens. Band III. Heft 2. By Prof. Anton Fritscu, of 
the Bohemian University of Prague. Prague, 1893. 
LL who are interested in the study of the Paleozoic Vertebrata 
will welcome the appearance of a new part of Prof. Anton 
Fritsch’s great work on the Permian Fauna of Bohemia, dealing, 
as this part mainly does, with a problematic group of extinct fishes, 
whose affinities have troubled paleichthyologists since the time of 
Agassiz. It is that of the Acanthodei, the consideration and illustra- 
tion of which occupy twenty-six of the thirty-two pages, and seven 
