318 University Geological Survey of Kansas. 



indicative of the direction of growth were from the extreme pos- 

 terior angle of the skull, instead of from the anterior portion, as 

 we would expect if this bone were the parietal. In skulls of 

 XiphactinuSj Ichthyodectes, and Gillicus, before me, I find the 

 same condition, which seems to confirm Mr. Newton's idea. 

 Recently Professor Hay 81 has shown wherein Professor Cope was 

 wrong in his identification of this part of Xiphactinus and Ich- 

 thyodectes, and, as the top of the skull as a whole seems to be 

 very similar to that of the two genera mentioned, I have no 

 doubt but that the same explanation will apply to Saurodon. 

 The pterotics are large bones and seem to be very dense in 

 structure. 



The supraoccipital is very much crushed and partially broken 

 away, but enough remains to show that the bone was raised 

 into quite a prominent crest. It extends backward beyond the 

 points of the epiotics, a condition different from that described 

 by Newton. 82 It probably does not join the frontals in front, the 

 parietals intervening. 



The orbit is somewhat smaller than in Ichthyodectes and is 

 surrounded by a thin ring of sclerotic bones similar to that 

 found in the genus just mentioned. Just in front of the orbit 

 there is a small triangular bone attached to the frontal above, 

 which I take to be a preorbital. The same bone is figured by 

 Newton 8 * but not named or described by the author. Just in 

 front of this there is a long slender bar of bone, which seems 

 to articulate somewhere in the palatine region. On one side 

 the anterior end is crushed down to near the posterior condyle 

 of the maxillary, but on the other side it fits in just back of the 

 superior condyle of the palatine, and as a palatine of another 

 specimen shows a sutural surface at this point, I think it not 

 unlikely that this is the correct position of the bone. This 

 may be the bone that Newton 84 figured as a "nasal bone, ,; (?) 

 although it is of an entirely different shape from that shown in 

 the cut of his specimen. The bone Newton calls " jugal" (?) 

 I am inclined to think is one of the suborbital bones, as found 



81. Zool. Bull., vol. II, p. 28. 83. 1. c, p. 444. 



82. 1. c, p. 444. 84. 1. c, pi. XXXIV. 



