532 Professor B. Biirckhardt — On Syperodapedon Gordoni. 



I carefully sought for any evidence of dermal ossification, and 

 detected a few vague signs here and there : for instance, on the 

 eio-hth rib of the left side, and on the opposed surface, in the vicinity 

 of the ends of the eleventh and the twelfth ribs ; also, some small 

 plates of an oval shape on the humeri. Under favourable light the 

 contours of the body, too, seemed to be indicated, notably in the 

 interspaces between the ends of the ribs. Finally, as may be seen 

 from our figure of the counterpart of the right side, a heart-like 

 projection can be observed in the blank space near the fourth rib, 

 differentiating it from other parts, through absence of matrix in 

 that place, from which a fibre of the thickness of a finger starts, 

 tending towards the neck in a decided manner, where it disappears 

 again in the slab. I suspect it to have been a visceral organ, 

 probably the stomach, to judge from its position. 



It may be mentioned that there are two specimens of Bhyncho- 

 saurus in the British Museum in which indications of the skin can 

 also be traced. Lortet has also already described such structures 

 in Sauranodon. In one of the Rhynchosauri, viz. the type from 

 which Huxley figured its hind-foot (pi. xxvii, fig. 5), the skin is so- 

 unmistakable that I have reproduced it here. 



Fig. 3. — Skin from the posterior abdominal region of Rhynchosaiirtis articeps^ 

 Two-thirds nat. size. From the specimen preserved in the British Museum 

 (Natural History). 



It belongs to the abdominal region, and vividly recalls a fragment 

 from the skin of a Lepidosaurian. But on this head I will not 

 venture upon any evidence of a closer relationship with either the 

 latter or any of the Ebynchocephalians, since we are yet quite 

 ignorant as to the skin structures of the Theromorphee. A more 

 intimate knowledge of the Lepidosauria from this point of view may 

 even necessitate a change of the name. 



