666 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVIII. No. 464. 



and discusses in detail in two papers* and in 

 an elaborate memoirf the structure and rela- 

 tionships of these animals. He advocates 

 their extremely early origin, holding that even 

 the oldest Creodonta do not give us a suffi- 

 ciently generalized ancestor, and that we must 

 revert to the Jurassic triconodont animals 

 generally considered as primitive marsupials. 

 The memoir is the most important and ex- 

 haustive one which has appeared upon the 

 skull of this aberrant form. 



Prohoscidea. — Dr. C. W. Andrews:); con- 

 tinues his important papers on the evolution 

 of the Proboscidea, tracing this line back to 

 Palceomastodon, Upper Eocene, and Mwri- 

 therium. Middle Eocene, a small ungulate 

 with quadritubercular molar teeth, which 

 this author regards as in the direct line 

 leading to the Proboscidea; it shows most 

 interesting relationships to the Sirenia, which 

 tend to connect the two groups. 



In this connection may be mentioned a 

 paper by Mr. W. K. Gregory on the ' Adaptive 

 Significance of the Shortening of the Ele- 

 phant's Skull,'§ in which the mechanical 

 effect of trunk and tusks on the evolution of 

 the skull is worked out in detail. 



Other Mammals. — Other African fossils de- 

 scribed by Dr. C. W. Andrews || include the 



*' ' Einiges fiber Bau und Stelhing der Zeuglo- 

 donten, Sonder-Abdr. a. d. Mai-Protokoll,' Zeitschr. 

 d. Deutsch. geol. Gesellschaft, Jahrg., 1903. 



' Berielit fiber eine von den Privatdozenten Dr. 

 Max Blanokenhorn und Dr. Ernst Stronier von 

 Eeichenbach aiisgefuhrte Reise nach Aegyptcn. 

 Einleitung xmd ein Schildel und Unterkiefer von 

 Zeuglodon Osiris Dames,' Sep.-Abdr. a. d. Sitztmffs- 

 berichten d. mathem.-phys. Classe d. Icgl. hayer. 

 AJcademie d. Wissenschaften, Bd. XXXII., 1902, 

 Heft III. 



t ' Zeuglodon-Reste aus dem Oberen Mitteleochan 

 des Fajfim,' Sep.-Abdr. aus Beitrage zur Palaon- 

 tologie und Geologie Osterreich-Vngarns und 

 des Orients, Band xv., Heft ii. u. iii., Vienna and 

 Leipzig, 1903. 



t ' On the Evolution of the Proboscidea,' Proc. 

 Roy. Soc, Vol. 71, p. 443. 



I Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., Vol. XIX., July 

 8, 1903, Art. IX., pp. 387-394. 



II ' Notes on an Expedition to the Fayfim, Egypt, 

 with Descriptions of Some New Mammals,' Geol. 

 Mag., Dee. iv.. Vol. X., No. 470, August, 1903. 



Arsinoilherium, a large ungulate with a pair 

 of enormous horns on the front part of the 

 skull, and a new hyracoid, Saghatherium. In 

 this connection it is noted that ' the presence 

 of five Hyraces in these beds indicates that 

 these animals must at that time have been 

 an important factor in the fauna, and that the 

 comparatively small members of the group 

 now existing are the degenerate descendants 

 of a once important stock.' It is shown that 

 the specialization of the molar teeth in the 

 liyracoidea was already well marked in the 

 Upper Eocene beds. Of great interest also 

 is the discovery of a large creodont referred 

 to Pterodon africanus, of Oligocene age, and 

 of an animal related to Hyopotamus. Alto- 

 gether, the discoveries of Messrs. Beadnell, 

 of the Egyptian Survey, and Andrews, of the 

 British Museum, are the most important fea- 

 tures of recent progress in mammalian paleon- 

 tology. 



Of an entirely different nature is the superb 

 memoir entitled ' La Eaune Momifiee de 

 I'Ancienne ;^gypte,' by Messrs. Lortet and 

 Gaillard, recently issued from Lyons. It 

 covers the mummified mammals, birds and 

 fishes of Egypt and includes an exliaustive 

 systematic revision of these types, which have 

 been known over a century but have never 

 hitherto received adequate systematic descrip- 

 tion. 



RECENT DISCOVERIES IN FRANCE. 



Lophiodonts. — Professor Ch. Deperet, of 

 Lyons,* has made the welcome discovery of 

 the hitherto unknown skull of Lophiodon in 

 the Middle Eocene, Bartonien age. He points 

 out that it presents an astonishing resem- 

 blance to the skull of the primitive rhinocer- 

 oses, while it is remote from the skull of the 

 tapirs. This resemblance agrees with the 

 lophiodont form of the molar teeth, which is 

 substantially intermediate between the tapir 

 and the rhinoceros type. 



Creodonts. — Equally welcome is the de- 



* ' Sur les caractferes eraniens et les affinitfe des 

 Lophiodon,' Ch. Depfiret, Extr. des Comptes 

 Rendus des Seances de V Acadimie des Sciences, t. 

 CXXXIV., p. 1278, 2 June, 1902. 



