XCiv PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Pecopteris ; but the present specimen exhibits a well-marked example 

 of the circinate condition in Neuropteris, and proves that it did not 

 belong to the Coniferous order. The only flowering plants which can 

 be compared with Eerns in this respect are the Cycadece ; and Mr. 

 Bimbury admits the difficulty of deciding, in the absence of fructifi- 

 cation, whether Neuropteris may not have belonged to that family, 

 though it is far more probable, from all the observable characters, that 

 these plants were true Perns : the present specimen he considers to 

 belong to N. gigantea. Mr. Bunbury concluded his paper by stating 

 that the genus is principally characteristic of the Coal-measures, — no 

 genuine species from a formation later than the Trias having come 

 Under his notice, whilst the Oolitic species referred to the genus by 

 Lindley and Hutton do not agree with its characters. N. Loshii and 

 JSf. tenuifolia appear, he observes, to be common to the Carboniferous 

 and Permian systems ; and he adds that the species have been too 

 much multiplied by describing the ordinary and possible variations 

 in the same frond as distinct species. I need not add that this 

 short addition to our more critical knowledge of an important fossil 

 genus of plants exhibits Mr. Bunbury's well-known botanical skill 

 and accuracy of judgment. 



Foreign palaeontology. — Of all living animals, the Edentata are 

 perhaps second only to the Marsupials in the interest attached to 

 their organization and habits ; but, unlike the Marsupials, they 

 possess another claim to our admiration, in the fact that they have 

 not as yet been traced beyond what may be considered the natural 

 terrestrial range of their distribution. We can still study the won- 

 derful organization and the singular habits of the Armadillo and the 

 Sloth in the original cradle of the first birth of the order ; and Pro- 

 fessor Owen has pointed out to us that they are but the relics of a 

 larger fauna characteristic of South America, and once enriched by 

 the Glyptoclon, the Mylodon, and the Megatherium. A memoir upon 

 the Glyptoclon, by Professor Owen, has appeared in our Transactions ; 

 and my object at present is to bring under your notice a memoir by M. 

 L. Nodot of the Academy of Dijon, and published in its Transactions. 



AL Nodot first reviews the history of the progress of knowledge in 

 respect to the peculiar form of organization of the Edentata, and 

 specially of the Glyptoclon, and justly remarks that it was not till the 

 great Cuvier had given so powerful an impulse to the study of fossil 

 organic remains, that travellers began to bring home specimens of 

 such relics from distant countries. We are all aware with what 

 skill Professor Owen treated the investigation into the Osteology of 

 the remarkable genus Glyptoclon ; and M. Nodot states correctly that 

 he recognized and named, from specimens in the Museum of the Col- 

 lege of Surgeons, four species, to which he added afterwards, without 

 describing it, a fifth species ; but M. Nodot adds that the number 

 has now been, to his own knowledge, tripled. He then proceeds to 

 describe these species, making a wise reservation when he observes 

 that, not being acquainted with the descriptive characters of the 

 three species named by Dr. Lund Hoplophorus euplxraatus, H. JSelloi, 

 &nd H. minor, it is possible that he may have sometimes applied new 



