PERMIAN OF TEXAS AND SOUTH AFRICA 405 



«dge of the modern land vertebrates were similarly limited, to the animals 

 of a South African desert, a Texas delta, and a swamp in central Europe, 

 with a few odds and ends from elsewhere. The zoogeographer would be 

 bold indeed who propounded theories of distribution and migration based 

 on data so limited, and it is to be feared that his conclusions would bear 

 but little relation to the realities. While it is thus necessary to emphasize 

 the limitations of our knowledge, it is but fair to say that it is vastly 

 greater than it was a decade or two ago. The number of genera on record 

 is not so greatly increased, but our systematic and anatomical acquain- 

 tance with the characteristic types is more than doubled. 



Triassic Eeptiles and Amphibians of Germany 



Turning to the age of reptiles, we have in the Triassic the least known 

 chapter, so far as America is concerned, and very little has been added 

 to this chapter in the last decade. What little has been accomplished in 

 this direction is due to the energetic prospecting of Dr. Case and contains 

 promising prospect for the future, as well as a few but very interesting 

 additions to the Triassic faunae. ^^ In Europe, however, the recent dis- 

 coveries of Triassic dinosaurs at Halberstadt and Trossingen in Germany 

 and the discovery of a complete skeleton of a South African Triassic 

 dinosaur have given an adequate basis for the study of these primitive 

 dinosaurs and appreciation of their real relations to the specialized dino- 

 saurs of the later geologic periods. Especially is the discovery by von 

 Huene, in new excavations at Trossingen during the past two seasons, 

 of a series of a dozen or so more or less complete dinosaur skeletons likely 

 to be of great scientific value. Scarcely less important is a large quarry 

 •of skulls and skeletons of the great Triassic Labyrinthoclont Mastodon- 

 saurus, in the Black Forest region by Professor Wepfner, and the dis- 

 covery of complete skeletons of the very peculiar reptile Placodus, whose 

 teeth were found long ago in Germany and supj)osed to be the pavement- 

 teeth of a fish allied to the rays. This fine skeleton is being studied by 

 Doctor Drevermann, of the Senckenberg Museum. 



Jurassic Dinosaurs of Utah and East Africa 



The two outstanding features of progress in Jurassic land reptiles are 

 the great dinosaur quarry worked by the Carnegie Museum near Jensen, 

 in the Vernal Valley, Utah, and tlie Tendaguru dinosaur collections from 

 German East Africa secured for the Berlin Museum. So far as I can 



" E. C. Case: (1922.) Carnegie Inst. Pub. no. 321. 



