122 The Badland Formations of the Black Hills Region 



CROCODILES 



So far as I am aware only one species of crocodile from 

 the badland formations of the Black Hills region has been 

 described but fragments of several individuals have been found. 

 Two localities not far beyond the boundaries of the region have 

 furnished additional material. One of these, White Butte, 

 North Dakota, about thirty-five miles northeast of Cave Hills, 

 has afforded a tooth. This was discovered in 1905 by Mr. Earl 

 Douglass of the Carnegie Museum, in beds of Oligocene 

 age. The other locality is an indefinite one in the lower Niobrara 

 valley (possibly not far from Fort Niobrara) where Prof. 

 Marsh in 1873 found certain remains on which in 1877 he 

 established the species Crocodilus salaris. He states that the 

 beds in which the material was found are of Pliocene age. 

 Present correlation would seem to indicate them to be Miocene. 



In 1899 I found in the eastern breaks of Indian Creek 

 valley about six miles northeast of Sheep Mountain, the 

 anterior portion of the head of one individual. Prof. H. B. 

 Loomis of Amherst College in 1903 found various fragments 

 near the Cheyenne river. He also obtained in the Finney 

 Breaks near Folsom a considerable number of bones and other 

 remains. All of these came from the Titanotherinm beds. Prof. 

 Loomis described these specimens in the American Journal of 

 Science, vol. 18, 1904, pp. 427-429, under the name Crocodilus 

 prenasalis using the above mentioned imperfect head as the type 

 of the species. The part of the head that is preserved is broad 

 and short and contains the root portions of eighteen teeth, two 

 of which retain the nearly complete crowns. These are conical 

 and slightly recurved and the longest is approximately one-half 

 inch in length. The position of the undivided individual nasal 

 opening is far forward, hence the specific name prenasalis. The 

 portion of the head preserved, the snout, shows a width of two 

 and five eighths inches within two inches of the nasal end. The 

 complete skeleton was evidently of considerable size although 

 the full dimensions are conjectural. 



BIRDS EGGS 



Several fossil birds eggs have been found in or near the 

 Big Badlands. Unlike eggs found elsewhere as fossils the 

 Badland birds eggs are distinctly petrified, that is they show a 

 practically complete replacement of the original matter by 

 mineral material. Soft animal tissues quickly decay and only 



