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ON THE STBUCTUBE AND AFFINITIES OF THE 

 ENDOTHIODONT EEPTILES. 



By B. Broom, M.D., B.Sc, C.M.Z.S., Victoria College, Stellenbosch . 



(Bead September 28, 1904.) 



(Plates XII. , XIII., XIV.) 



In 1868 Huxley (1) described, under the name Pristerodon McKayi, 

 an imperfect skull that had been found by Mr. G. McKay at East 

 London. He regarded it as a " lacertilian skull," and no one seems 

 to have doubted the interpretation till Seeley (2) examined the 

 specimen in 1894, and expressed the opinion that the skull is that 

 of an Endothiodont. There is now little doubt that Seeley' s view 

 is correct. 



In 1876 Owen (3) described and figured in his Catalogue of South 

 African Fossil Beptiles " a cast of the fore part of the skull and 

 corresponding part of the mandible " of a large Anomodont reptile, 

 which he named Endothiodon bathystoma. The original is stated to 

 have been found in the Sneewberg Eange, and to be in the " Museum 

 of Albany, Cape of Good Hope." In Lydekker's (4) British 

 Museum Catalogue, 1890, the type is stated to have been presented 

 to the British Museum by the " Directors of the Museum at Albany, 

 Cape Colony." There is still in the Albany Museum, Grahamstown, 

 some bones, which are said to have belonged to the same individual 

 as the type snout. The principal of these are the occiput and a few 

 cervical vertebrae. 



Owen was struck by the close resemblance of the snout to that of 

 Oudenodon, especially in the absence of teeth from the alveolar 

 borders of both upper and lower jaws. The new form was, however, 

 observed to differ from Oudenodon in having a number of rounded 

 teeth on what was regarded as the " palatal surface of the maxillary 



