1882.] PROF. PARKER ON THE SKULL OF THE CROCODILIA. 97 
January 17, 1882. 
Prof. Flower, LL.D., F.R.S., President, in the Chair. 
The following report on the additions to the Society’s Mena- 
gerie during the month of December 1881 was read by the 
Secretary :— 
The total number of registered additions to the Society’s Mena- 
gerie during the month of December 1881 was 82, of which 8 
were by birth, 39 by presentation, 26 by purchase, and 9 were 
received on deposit. The total number of departures during 
the same period, by death and removals, was 82. 
The most noticeable additions during the month were :— 
1. A young male Guemul Deer (Purcifer chilensis), from Pata- 
gonia, purchased December 22nd of the Jardin d’Acclimatation 
of Paris. 
This animal has lately shed its horns, and is now growing a 
new pair. 
2. A Germain’s Peacock-Pheasant (Polyplectron germaini), pur- 
chased December 24th. 
Both these accessions are of species new to the Society’s series. 
Prof. Newton exhibited, by favour of Messrs. Hallett & Co., the 
skin and bones of the trunk of a specimen of Notornis mantelli, re- 
cently received by them from New Zealand, and stated to have been 
obtained in the province of Otago about eighteen months ago. 
Prof. Newton pointed out that the sternum figured in the Society’s 
‘ Transactions’ (vol. iv. pl. 4. figs. 5-8) as of this species must 
belong to a totally different form. 
Prof. W. K. Parker, F.R.S., read a memoir on the skull of the 
Crocodilia, of which the following is an abstract :— 
‘The Crocodilia have seen the rise and fall of several Reptilian 
dynasties, and even now they are in no danger of extinction. Their 
development is precisely like that of the Sauropsida generally (the 
other Reptiles, and Birds) ; but in some very important respects they 
anticipate cranial modifications that only come to perfection in the 
Mammalia. 
“Tt is difficult, at first, to see in what their embryo differs from 
that of a bird; but the long tail is diagnostic; this, however, would 
not always have served that purpose, as the avian contemporaries 
of the Crocodiles of the Oolite had tails relatively as long as those 
of the Crocodiles. 
“The near approach to that modification of the skull which is 
seen in the Bird is very remarkable in the early stages of the 
Crocodile ; but whilst the one becomes as light asa quill, the other 
becomes as heavy as the armour of a Tortoise; yet in the adult 
Crocodile the whole hind skull is a labyrinth of air-cavities, which 
Proc. Zoou. Soc.—1882, No. VII. 7 
