198 TEN YEAKS' PROGRESS IN VERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY 



phylogeny have received but little critical study, and the limits of the 

 various groups are not well understood. 



The National Museum has recently obtained skulls of several forms of 

 toothed whales not previously recognized as occurring in America, as well 

 as large numbers of other skeletal parts of both toothed whales and whale- 

 bone whales. The Geological Survey of Maryland and the University of 

 California have collected some interesting material in connection with 

 their various paleontological investigations. The Geological Museum of 

 the University of Padua contains some interesting specimens of fossil 

 toothed w^hales, recently collected by Doctor Dal Piaz in the Italian 

 Miocene. Single specimens of great interest are scattered through the 

 museums of Bologna, Budapest, Vienna, Saint Petersburg, Brussels, 

 and the museums of the United States and Argentina. 



The knowledge of the zeuglodonts has received very great accessions 

 during the decade, chiefly through the discoveries in the Eocene of Egypt, 

 and their evolutionary history and their principal representatives may be 

 said to be well known. The most important recent collections from 

 Africa are in the Geological Museum at Cairo, the museums of Frank- 

 fort-on-the-Main, Munich, Stuttgart, and London. Something has been 

 done to make the American forms better Ivnown, and a fine skeleton of 

 the great Zeuglodon cetoides has been mounted by the Xational Museum. 



Much has been learned regarding primitive Sirenians during the 

 decade, and the ancestry of the group has been traced back to the Lower 

 Middle Eocene. The most important collections are those obtained in 

 Egypt along with the zeuglodonts. They are preserved in the Geological 

 Museum at Cairo, in the British Museum, and, I believe, in the museums 

 of Munich and Stuttgart. 



Knowledge of the pinnipeds has not progressed materially during the 

 decade. We have learned definitely, however, that seals and walruses 

 occurred in the Miocene of our Atlantic coast, and seals and sea-lions in 

 the Miocene of the coast of Oregon. The American material collected, 

 though important, is limited in extent. 



Theories accepted and rejected in recent Years 



The theory that primitive mammals were cetoid in character has, I 

 believe, been definitely rejected ; also that there is any direct relationship 

 between Cetacea and Sirenia. 



That the tootlied whales are directly derived from small primitive 

 zeuglodonts (but probably not from any known form) has been generally 

 accepted; and this view, with various modifications, is, I think, the pre- 



