( 169 ) 
ON THE STRUCTURE OF THE PALATE IN DICYNODON, 
AND ITS ALLIES. 
By R. Broom, M.D., B.Sc. 
(Read August 29, 1900.) 
(Plate XXV.) 
Though various accounts have been given of the structure of the 
palate in Dicynodon and its allies, it must be admitted that as regards 
many details of structure very little is known, and even where there 
is general agreement as to the structures there is much discrepancy 
in the interpretation of the elements. 
~ Owen,* in his ‘‘ Reptiles of South Africa” and other papers, has 
shown the general arrangement of the bones in the roof of the mouth ; 
but as regards the limits of the different bones he does not supply 
very definite information. 
Huxley {+ made sections across the anterior part of an imperfect 
skull of Ptychosiagum Murrayi, and thereby revealed the presence 
of an extensive though delicate median osseous septum, which he 
regarded as an ethmo-vomerine septum. He gives fairly good figures 
of his sections, but his interpretation of the structure of the septum 
is altogether erroneous. 
Lydekker, | in the British Museum “ Catalogue of Fossil Reptiles,”’ 
gives a figure of the palate of Dicynodon with a determination of the 
elements. : 
The fullest account, however, of the Anomodont § palate is that 
given by Seeley || in 1889. He gives a figure of the palate of 
Dicynodon, and a description of the bones. Though Seeley’s de- 
* R. Owen, ‘‘ Cat. Foss. Rept. South Africa,’ 1876. 
+ T. H. Huxley, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xv., p. 654, and plate xxii., 
figs. 3-6. 
t R. Lydekker, ‘‘ Cat. Foss. Rept. and Amphib. Brit. Mus.,” part iv., 1890, p. 18. 
§ The term Anomodontia or Anomodont used throughout the paper is employed 
as by Cope, Baur, and Zittel to denote the order or sub-order of which Dicynodon 
is the type, and not as it is employed by Lydekker and Seeley for the large sub- 
class of Reptiles with mammalian affinities. 
|| H. G. Seeley, “‘On the Anomodont Reptilia and their Allies,” Phil. Trans., 
1889. 
