Explorations for Fossils 93 



islands made it appear highly probable that some land verte- 

 brates formerly existed there, and the geology indicated that 

 caves probably existed similar to those in Porto Rico and Cuba 

 from which Mr. Anthony had secured such large and interest- 

 ing collections of fossil mammals, and that they might also 

 yield fossils. Preliminary reports from Mr. Anthony leave us 

 no doubt that this forecast has been verified, but the extent 

 and character of the collections remain to be seen. The char- 

 acter of this fauna will be studied with particular interest, as 

 it should throw further light on the source of the fauna and 

 the manner of its arrival on the islands. The geology of the 

 West Indies indicates that the most probable locus for a main- 

 land connection, if the fauna arrived in that manner, is by way 

 of Haiti, Jamaica and Honduras. Obviously if the animals 

 did arrive in that manner, the fauna of Jamaica ought to be 

 more like that of the mainland than those of any of the other 

 islands — more continental in type. On the other hand, if the 

 animals, or rather their ancestors, arrived on the islands 

 through the agency of storms, floating vegetation or other 

 accidents of oversea transportation, without the aid of any 

 continuous land bridge, then Jamaica, as a rather small and 

 isolated island, should have a more scanty and insular fauna 

 than the larger and more central islands of Cuba and His- 

 paniola, perhaps even more so than Porto Rico. 



A partial skeleton of a small pterodactyl, or flying reptile, 

 from the Cretaceous chalk beds of Kansas, was purchased 

 from the discoverer, Mr. C. H. Sternberg. Another interest- 

 ing specimen purchased from Mr. Sternberg is the hinder half 

 of the skeleton of the gigantic extinct bear, Arctotherium, 

 from the Rock Creek beds of Texas. The bones are finely 

 preserved, and considerably larger than the corresponding 

 parts of the great Alaskan Brown Bears. 



Steady progress has been made in revising and rearranging 

 the storage collections of fossil mammals in charge of Asso- 

 ciate Curator Granger. Various specimens and 

 Cataloguing casts in the barren Collection, most of them 



and storage 



without any records of their identity or locality, 



were identified through published figures, references or other 



