CYNODONTIA. 269 



mouth is shut ; they would pierce and cut like the carnassial 

 molars of carnivorous mammals. 



The reptilian nature of the above-described skull is shewn 

 by the single occipital condyle, associated with the contracted 

 cranium and the complex frontal bone ; its crocodilian affini- 

 ties by its terminal single nostril. The more generalized 

 saurian character is exemplified by the series of small vascular 

 foramina near the alveolar border of the jaws, and by the 

 "foramen parietale;" whilst a most singular and suggestive 

 approach to the mammalian class is made in the above- 

 described characters of the dentition. 



The predominance of the canines, their seeming want of 

 successors — the certain absence, at least, of such evidence as 

 would have appeared had the canines been subject to the 

 ordinary law of saurian dentition — point to a relationship 

 with the Dicynodonts ; the structure of the occipital region 

 of the skull and the expanse of the tympanies and zygomatic 

 arches, also conform to the type of those singular South 

 African reptiles. The breadth and flatness of the skull and 

 the proportions of the orbits and temporal fossae recall the 

 proportions of Simosaurus amongst the peculiar saurians of 

 the triassic deposits of Germany. 



Genus Cynochampsa,* Ow. 



Cynoclmm'psa laniarius, Ow."j" This genus and species are 

 indicated by the extremity of the upper and lower jaws, 

 from the same formation and locality as Galesaurus. Suf- 

 ficient of the jaw is preserved to shew that it must have 

 terminated in a more or less produced narrow muzzle, which, 

 including the under jaw, would present a subcylindrical trans- 

 verse section, as in the Gavial and Teleosaur : but a close-set 

 series of small and similarly sized incisor teeth are separated 



* From kuon, a dog; and champsai, the Egyptian name for the crocodile, 

 f Described and figured in " Quarterly Journal of Geological Society," 1859, 

 p. 63. PI. III. figs. 1-4. 



