Yol. 52.] OF THE PLESIOSATJRJAN SKULL. 253 



Discussion. 



The President invited discussion. 

 , Prof. Howes, on behalf of morphologists, gave expression of 

 gratitude to the Trustees and Staff of the British Museum of 

 Natural History for the work now being accomplished in their 

 Geological Department. He remarked that he had been privileged 

 to examine the Author's specimens, and that he fully confirmed 

 his determinations. He could not accept the idea, to which reference 

 had been made, that Pureiasaurus had a closed palate in the ordinary 

 sense j that is to say, the internal nasal openings were not carried 

 to the back of the palate by the union of the palato-pterygoid bones 

 as they are in the Crocodilia. 



In concluding, he pointed out that the Author's determinations 

 of the bony palate of the Sauropterygia were in complete harmony 

 with Mr. Lydekker's of that of the Ichthyopterygia, and with the 

 best-established facts of morphology ; and that, thanks to these 

 gentlemen, we were now in a position to definitely refer the 

 ' Enaliosauria ' to an origin among the lowest reptiles. 



Mr. Lydekker and Dr. Woodward also spoke. 



The Author expressed his thanks to the Fellows, particularly 

 those who had spoken, for the kind manner in which they had 

 received his paper. He also referred to his indebtedness to Mr. Hall, 

 one of the ' masons ' at the Natural History Museum, for the 

 skilful way in which he had cleared the specimen from its hard 

 matrix. 



