3S0 Sou ntific Intelligence. 



A comparison with the Middle and Upper Miocene faunae is 

 much more difficult on account of our imperfect knowledge of so 

 many of the species. These appear, however, to be a further 

 outgrowth of the Rosebud, but contain new elements which can- 

 not be derived from this source, such as the Proboscidea, the 

 Pecora (modern ruminants), Protohippinse (horses with long- 

 crowned, cemented teeth and reduced lateral metapodials but 

 retaining a vestigial pollex), and probably certain Carnivora 

 (Lutrina?, etc.). Aside from these foreign elements of the later 

 Miocene, the Rosebud fauna presents two stages in the evolution 

 of the Miocene fauna fairly intermediate between the John Day 

 and the Deep River-Pawnee Creek beds ; the remainder are suf- 

 ficiently more primitive for generic separation or represent phyla 

 which have not survived. If the John Day represents the Upper 

 Oligocene of Europe and the Deep River-Pawnee Creek the Mid- 

 dle Miocene, the Rosebud represents an earlier and a later phase 

 of the Lower Miocene. 



The discovery of these intermediate stages will enable us to 

 clear up the relations of most of the Oligocene and Upper Mio- 

 cene genera and to trace the descent of the various phyla and 

 subphyla much more exactly than has hitherto been possible. 

 The more elaborate studies and extensive collections of the past 

 few years in the American Tertiaries have shown that the simple 

 phyletic series, based upon more fragmentary and imperfect data 

 than are now available, are true only in a general and approxi- 

 mate way. Recent phylogenetic study has tended quite as much 

 to negative as to positive results — to break up accepted phyla as 

 to reinforce them by more complete knowledge of the genera. 

 It is peculiarly satisfactory, therefore, to find a fauna which is 

 intermediate between two stages hitherto disconnected, and ena- 

 bles us to perceive the exact relationship between genera which 

 could until now be connected only in a general or provisional 

 way. The preliminary results here presented are very incomplete 

 and various additions and modifications may be needed when the 

 collections are more completely prepared and studied, e. s. l. 



4. Points of the Skeleton of the Arab Horse ; by H. F. 

 OsBOEx. Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. xxiii, art. xiii, pp. 

 259-203. — In this brief article Professor Osborn discusses the 

 distinctive features of the Arabian horse as shown in the skeleton 

 of the horse "Nimr" recently mounted at the American Museum 

 of Natural History. It is interesting to compare these points 

 with those of the Arab mare, "Esnea," the skeleton of which is 

 preserved in the Yale University Museum. "Esnea", was a pure 

 bred Arabian, imported from Damascus by Mr. John W. Garrett 

 in 1852. Some or the points are as follows : 



(l.) Arab horses possess but five lumbar vertebrae. This is 

 true of " Nimr," of "Lexington" in the U. S. National Museum, 

 and also of a thoroughbred in the British Museum. " Esnea," 

 however, has six lumbars, the last three being coossified. 



(2.) The characteristic elevation of the tail due to the upturned 

 sacral and anterior caudal vertebras together with the remarkable 



