352 PROF. OWEN ON EVIDENCES OF THERIODOXTS IN PERMIAN 



38. Evidences of Theriodonts in Permian Deposits elsewhere than in 

 South Africa. By Prof. Owen, C.B., F.R.S., F.G.S. (Read 

 May 24, 1876.) 



A few days ago Mr. W. Davies brought to my notice the cast of a 

 fossil which had been purchased by the British Museum in 1865 of 

 Krantz, the dealer, with the label " Eurosaurus urahnsis, H. v. 

 Meyer, Brithopus prisons, Kutorga. Permischer Sandstein von 

 Perm." 



The subject of this cast is that of Kutorga's plate i., and is, as 

 he truly describes it, the lower end of a humerus, with the perfora- 

 tion or canal above the inner condyle, on which character he mainly 

 rests his determination of the fossil as evidence of an extinct mam- 

 mal and as the basis of his genus and species Brithopus prisms *. 



The discovery of that character in the humerus of Cynodraco f 

 and other genera of South African reptilia, led to the rescue of 

 the cast in question from the obscurity in which it had remained 

 since its acquisition, and to the present retrospect of the circum- 

 stances under which Kutorga's contribution to Permian palaeontology 

 has been thrown into the background, and his supposed mamma- 

 lian genera systematically ignored. 



Kutorga, accepting the evidences summed up, in 1831 $, of the 

 mammalian mature of Thylacotherium and Phascolotherium, and 

 the proofs of the Oolitic age of their matrix, saw no geological 

 objection to the remains of that class being discovered in the Per- 

 mian deposits. 



With respect to the most conspicuous test- character of the fossil 

 humerus §, he truly states that such character was known only (in 

 1838) in that bone of certain unguieulate mammals ; and he quotes 

 the instances given by Cuvier ||, out of which instances, by reason 

 of the breadth of the condylar part of his fossil, and the high posi- 

 tion of the canal, he adopts the Edentate genera as those to which 

 his Brithopus was most nearly allied, and proposes to place his 

 extinct mammalian genus between Brady pus and Dasypus %. 



* Beitrag zur Kenntniss der organischen Ueberreste des Kupfersandsteins 

 am westlichen Abhange des Urals, von Dr. Stephan Kutorga, &c, mit vii. 

 Steindrucktafeln (8vo, St. Petersburg, 1838), p. 9. 



t Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxxii. p. 95, pi. xi. figs. 6-9. 



\ Buckland, Bridgewater Treatise, vol. i. : supplemented by papers in Pro- 

 ceedings of the Geological Society of London, December, 1838, vol. iii. p. 17 : 

 and Transactions of the Geological Society, 2nd Series, vol. vi. p. 58. 



§ " Das am meisten im Auge fallende Kennzeichen dieses Knochens, ist das 

 grosse ovale, liber dem ' Condylus internus' stehende Loch, welches zum Durch- 

 gange der Arteria ulnaris diente." — Op. cit. p. 10. 



1 Lecons dAnat. Comp. ed. 1835, vol. i. p. 384. 



*[[ " Aus allem oben Gesagten ergiebt sich, dass das Thier, dessen Oberarm- 

 knochentheil wir vor uns haben, zur Ordnung der Edentaten gehorte, und zwar 

 zu einer neuen, zwischen Brady pus und Dasypus zu stellenden, jedoch mehr mit 

 der ersten verwandten Gattimg." — lb. p. 13. 



