120 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



A provisional nomenclature was therefore proposed, in order to make 

 work possible in those groups in which, as in the Corals, classification, 

 except in its barest outlines, is premature. The author suggested that this 

 consists (1) of the existing generic name (or, when that cannot be discovered, 

 the family name) ; (2) of the locality in which each specimen has been 

 found ; (3) of a fraction which can be understood from the following illus- 

 tration : — " Porites, Singapore -^ " would mean that there are twenty 

 apparently distinct forms of Porites known to occur at Singapore, and the 

 particular one referred to is that which was described and figured as No. 4. 

 If a new Porites be found in the same locality, i. e. a Porites not immedi- 

 ately referable to any yet figured, its designation for reference would be 

 " Porites, Singapore f i." The formula which shall be ultimately agreed 

 upon ought to be formally adopted. 



Dr. Smith Woodward, at a meeting of the Zoological Society on 

 March 5th, read a paper on some remains of extinct Reptiles obtained from 

 Patagonia by the La Plata Museum. They included the skull and other 

 remains of a remarkably armoured Chelonian, Miolania, which had pre- 

 viously been discovered only in superficial deposits in Queensland and in 

 Lord Howe's Island, off the Austrahan coast. The genus was now proved 

 to be Pleurodiran. There was also a considerable portion of the skeleton 

 of a large extinct Snake, apparently of the primitive genus of the South 

 American family IlysiidcB. Along with these remains were found the well- 

 preserved jaws of a large carnivorous Dinosaur, allied to Megalosaurus. 

 Either the Dinosaurian Reptiles must have survived to a later period in 

 South America than elsewhere, or geologists must have been mistaken as to 

 the age of the formation in which the other reptiles and extinct mammals 

 occurred. The discovery of Miolania in South America seemed to favour 

 the theory of a former antarctic continent ; but it should be remembered 

 that in late Secondary and early Tertiary times the Pleurodiran Chelonians 

 were almost cosmopolitan. Future discovery might thus perhaps explain 

 the occurrence of Miola7iia in South America and Australia, in the same 

 manner as the occurrence of Ceratodus in these two regions was already 

 explained. 



