552 Dr. C. I. Forsyth Major — PUohyraxfrom Samos. 



(4) by the bony palate not being prolonged backward beyond the 

 molar series. 



A characteristic feature of the Hyraces is revealed by a second 

 skull from Samos, which found its way to the Stuttgart Museum, 

 and has been described and figured by Osborn.^ " The relationship 

 of PlioTiyrax to Hyrax is ... . obvious in the enlarged pair 

 of incisor teeth and in the lophoselenodont structure of the molar 

 teeth, which characters respectively determine its subordinal and 

 ordinal position." 



In the side view of the Stuttgart skull,- drawn from a photograph, 

 the infraorbital foramen appears to occupy the same position as in 

 the cranium of the specimen in the British Museum. In the portion 

 situated behind the foramen, I am quite unable to distinguish 

 between what is bone, what is matrix, and what may be artificial 

 sculpturing of the latter. The only reference to this part in the 

 text is the statement on p. 172, of "the elevated position of the 

 orbits," wherein we have a further agreement with the British 

 Museum skull. A third point in which the Stuttgart fossil agrees 

 with that of London is "the extreme backward extension of the 

 posterior nares." 



The antemolars cannot be compared, the only premolar preserved 

 in the British Museum skull (p. 1) being considerably damaged 

 and, besides, out of position (the inner side is turned outwards). 

 However, its molariform pattern and the presence of cusp 2 

 (mesostyle), as described by Osborn in p. 1 from Stuttgart, are 

 clearly discernible. Of p. 1 and p. 2 the same writer says, that 

 they "present an inward and backward cingular extension of the 

 protoloph which may be a specific character." The same may be 

 seen in much worn premolars (and molars) of recent Hyraces, the 

 explanation being that the cingulum cusp at the opening of the 

 great inner fold becomes fused with the anterior lobe. 



Owing to the bad preservation of the true molars in the Stuttgart 

 cranium little information could be gathered from them, but this 

 agrees also with the specimen in the British Museum. "The 

 molars increase in size posteriorly, and are extended well back 

 behind the junction of the zygomatic arch with the face. . . . 

 In the first superior molar ... a prominent mesostyle is seen 

 separating the external lobes, and these are of the lophoselenodont 

 type of PalcBOtherium and Hyrax." ^ 



Osborn is of opinion that PlioTiyrax may possibly be the 

 representative of a new family of the Hyracoidea, a view which is 

 rather corroborated than not by the additional information obtained 

 from the British Museum skull. 



The collection from Samos in the Munich Palseontological Museum 



^ H. F. Osborn, " On Pliohyrax Kriippii, Osborn, a fossil Hyracoid, from Samos, 

 Lower Pliocene, in the Stuttj^art Collection. A new type, and the first known 

 Tertiary Hyracoid": Proc. Fourth Intemat. Cong. Zoology, Cambridge, 22-27 

 August, 1898; pp. 172, 173, pi. ii (1899). 



^ Op. cit., pi. ii, fig. 1. 



3 Op. cit., p. 173. 



