w8or.] Zoology. 489 
the. lines cc. Concluding that these singular developments were 
worthy the attention of our scientific authorities, I lost no time in 
sending a description of them to Dr. Giinther and Mr. Boulenger, 
even venturing to suggest that before they were eaten off by degrees 
a snip of the professional scissors might preserve the specimen for the 
museum, Mr. Boulenger, in consequence, secured the trifid limb, and 
in due time the result of his investigations will appear in the Zoological 
Society’s ‘‘ Proceedings.’’ I observe, too, that the long, vertical fin 
and also the tail, when bitten, now no longer regain their normal form 
as they did at first, but remain indented with broad, rounded lobes, and 
with an ortet edge, like a cord. The whole development strikes 
one as an example of rapid evolution ; as if Protopterus, after many 
fruitless attempts to restore its slender limbs, had “improved ” upon 
them, growing them stouter and stronger to assist it in swimming, 
compensating in bulk what it could not acquire in length. But this is 
mere imagination on my part. I must leave to science to account for 
the anomaly. 
The amputated limb healed entirely, with the angles rounded off, in 
in three days. Within three weeks a point (Fig. ¢) grew out from the 
truncated limb, but not in the center. In a few days more the point 
was nearly three-fourths of an inch long and more in the center (Fig. /). 
It will be closely watched.—CaTHERINE C. Hoptey. 
The Lower Jaw of Sphenodon.—It seems to me that there 
has never been given a correct description of the lower jaw of Spheno- 
don, Günther? writes in 1867, in his ‘Anatomy of Hatteria” : “A 
part of the sutures between the bones of which the lower jaw of lizards 
is generally composed have entirely disappeared (if they ever existed), 
so that the following bones only can be distinguished. The dentary 
(u) forms nearly entirely the outer surface of the mandible, a compara- 
the small articular portion, and the top of the coronoid process 
ted. There is a very distinct foramen between the dentary and 
articular, penetrating to the inner surface of the mandible. The 
‘splenial (v) is narrow elongate, behind twisted downwards to the lower 
side of the mandible and terminating about three millims. from its 
extremity. The coronoid (x) is triangular, covering with one angle 
the cartilage of Meckel, and forming with another the coronoid pro- 
cess, The articular bone (w) is very peculiar; if an angular bone was 
present at an early age it has now entirely coalesced with the splenial, 
there being scarcely any osseous projection behind the articulary 
‘Surface. The articular surface itself does not correspond in form with 
? Philos. Trans., 1867, pp. 600, 60r, Pl. xXVI., Figs. 6, 7. 
