404 W. D. MATTHEAV PROGRESS IX VERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY 



Museum have been studied and compared with the South African faunas 

 by Case, Gregory,* Broom/ Watson,^ and von Huene/ and important 

 collections from the Texas Permian have been obtained for the Tubingen 

 and Munich museums in Germany. There shall be noted, also, the fine 

 skeleton of the fin-back reptile Dimetrodon, recently mounted in the ISTa- 

 tional Museum.^ The South x\frican Permian has also been vigorously 

 exploited by Broom, ATatson, Haughton,^ and Van Hoepen^*^ and large 

 collections made, including many finely preserved skulls and skeletons. 

 This fauna is of peculiar interest as containing apparently the beginnings 

 of the evolution of mammals, birds, and dinosaurs. It is significant that 

 it is regarded as the fauna of an arid or desert region, rather in contrast 

 to the fluviatile or littoral facies represented by the Texas Permian. 



The third great area for Permian vertebrates, the Dvina Eiver, in 

 Poland, has not, so far as I know, been seriously exj)loited since the work 

 of Amalitzky, twenty years ago, nor has anything been added to Fritsch's 

 pioneer work in Bohemia. 



With all that has been done, we really know very little as yet of the 

 Permian land animals. The period was a most important and critical 

 one in the evolution of land life, for it witnessed the first great expansion 

 of land vertebrates and the origin, probably, of mammals, birds, and the 

 principal orders of reptiles, including dinosaurs. What we know best is 

 the river-delta fauna of the Lower Permian in Texas, a series of plains 

 or desert faunae of Upper Permian age in South Africa, and probably a 

 similar facies in Poland; a small Permian swamp fauna in Bohemia, and 

 a few items from other regions. These must represent but a small pro- 

 portion of the variety and scope of land life of the Permian world. How 

 imperfect a picture it gives may be Judged by supposing that our knowl- 



* W. K. Gregory : Various articles in Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., 1908 to 1922 ; 1913, 

 Journal of Morphology. 



^ R. Broom: (1908-1922.) Numerous articles in Bull. Amer, Mus. Nat. Hist., Proc. 

 Zool. Soc. London, Ann. South African Museum, etc. 



«D, M. S. Watson: (1912-1922.) Numerous articles in Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Proc. 

 Zool. Soc. London, Trans. Roy. Soc. London, Geol. Mag., etc. 



^ F. Von Huene : (1922.) Osteologie des Dicynodon Schadels, Pal. Zeitsch., V, 58-71; 

 1913, Skull elements of Permian Tetrapoda, Bvill. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. xxxii, 315- 

 386 ; 1912-1913. Anatomischer Anzeiger, 42 Bd., s. 98, 472 ; 43 Bd., s. 389, 519. 



^ C. W. Gilmore : (1919.) A mounted skeleton of Dimetrodon gigas. Proc. U. S. Nat. 

 Mus., vol. 56, pp. 525-539, pis. 70-73. 



^ S. H. Haughton : (1915-1918.) Ann. S. African Mus., vol. xii, containing descrip- 

 tions of the paleontological material of the S. African Museum and Geol. Surv. S. 

 Africa ; 1919. Review of the reptilian fauna of the Karroo system of South Africa. 

 Trans. Geol. Soc. S. Afr., vol. xxii, pp. 1-26 ; 1920, On the genus Ictidopsis. Ann. Durb. 

 Mus., vol. ii, part v ; 1921, On the reptilian genera Euparkeria Broom and Mesosuchus 

 Watson. Trans. Roy. Soc. S. Afr., vol. x, pp. 81-88. 



^° Van Hoepen : (1915.) Ann. Transvaal Mus., vol. v, nos. 1, 2. 



