320 MESSES. HANCOCK AND ATTHEY 



in the same locality, the true nature of which fossil however has 

 been misunderstood. 



In the "Annals," some months ago, Mr. T. P. Barkas de- 

 ' scribed what he considered to be a malar bone as large as that 

 of a full-grown crocodile. Having obtained some authentic in- 

 formation respecting this enigmatical bone, we are not surprised 

 to find that it has no resemblance whatever to a reptilian malar, 

 and that it is, in fact, composed of several of the upper cranial 

 bones of the Labyrinthodont alluded to. 



Mr. William Dinning, a clever young palaeontologist, was 

 allowed by the o>Vher of the fossil in question to make a draw- 

 ing of it ; and he has kindly permitted us to refer to his figure, 

 which represents the specimen of the natural size, and has all 

 the appearance of great accuracy. With the aid of this draw- 

 ing, and the original incomplete description in the "Annals," 

 there is no difficulty in determining the real nature of this so- 

 called malar. That it is the upper portion of the cranium of a 

 Labyrinthodont there can be no doubt; neither can there be 

 any doubt that it consists of the two frontals (which are quite 

 distinctly displayed), the parietals, and the greater portion of 

 the supraoccipitals. 



We have recently had an opportunity of examining a perfect 

 cranium of a large Labyrinthodont resembling Loxomma. In 

 this specimen the contour of the combined frontals, parietals, 

 and supraoccipitals resembles the general contour of the bones 

 composing the so-called malar in the most remarkable manner ; 

 only in this fine cranium they are altogether more elongated in 

 proportion to their width than they are in it ; and, besides, in 

 the former the outer margins of the frontals are parallel, or 

 nearly so, while in the so-called malar the frontals considerably 

 widen anteriorily. Now in Antliracosaurus this is precisely the 

 case ; and though in our specimen of this Labyrinthodont, de- 

 scribed in the paper before referred to, the frontals are a little 

 larger than those of the so-called malar, they agree with them 

 exactly in form and proportion. This is sufficiently evident, 

 notwithstanding that they are not quite perfect. Moreover, the 

 surface -sculpture of the bone in Antliracosaurus is very similar 



