ON A NEW SPECIES OF DICYNODON 131 
which first came into my possession. I had then no hesitation in 
desiring to lay my results before this Society; and on the 2nd of 
February the President assigned me the evening of the 23rd of 
March for this and certain other communications. 
In the meanwhile, the Society happening to be but scantily 
supplied with papers on the evening of the 23rd of February, I 
exhibited the cranium of my new Décynodon, defined its characters, 
and conferred upon it the name of D. Murray7, after the gentleman 
to whose exertions I was indebted for my materials. 
The cranium of Dzcynodon Murrayi (P\. XXIII. [Plate 9] fig. 1) 
measures seven inches in a straight line from the extremity of the 
occipital condyle to the extremity of the snout, and six inches along 
a line drawn from the highest point of the roof of the skull to the 
articular extremity of the quadrate bone. From the extreme outer 
point of the left quadrate bone (the right is somewhat damaged) to 
the centre of the occipital condyle is a distance of four inches; so 
that the back of the skull is eight inches wide. The highest point, 
or vertex, of the skull Jies a little in front of the posterior boundary 
of the orbit, and is situated, as nearly as may be, opposite the middle 
of the horizontal axis of the skull. The occipital condyle is a little 
broken at its extremity, but still projects half an inch beyond the 
plane of the occipital foramen 
The posterior part of the superior region of the skull, or that 
which lies between the temporal fossa, looks backwards as well as 
upwards, so as to form an angle of about 30° with a line joining the 
snout and the occipital condyle. Between the orbits the contour of 
the cranial roof is rounded from before backwards, and so passes 
into the preorbital region, which slopes abruptly downwards and 
forwards, so as to form an angle of 90°—100° with the plane of the 
intertemporal region. «As both the anterior and the posterior ends of 
the head are obliquely truncated, its entire lateral contour appears 
like a pentagon, whose apex, formed by the vertex, is directed up- 
wards, and its base, formed by the mandibles, is turned downwards. 
On the other hand, viewed from in front or behind (PI. XXIII. 
[Plate g] fig. 2), the skull has rather the form of a hexagon, whose 
superior side is constituted by the interorbital space, its supero- 
lateral sides by the edges of the postfrontal bones, its infero-lateral 
sides by the quadrate bones, and its base by the interval between 
the rami of the mandibles. The superior face of the skull is narrower 
in front than behind, where it presents a deep and wide median 
excavation, formed by the divergence of two strong processes, which 
expand at their ends and unite with a straight, strong, bony bar, 
I, 2 
