20 THE AMERICAN NATORALIST.. AV OF ocx ie 
studied with Dr. Baur, has published in Sczence (July, 1898, 
pp. 69 and 70) a brief but excellent account of Dr. Baur’s work 
in herpetology : 
“Dr. Baur’s especial interest was in the morphology of the 
vertebrate skeleton. Although he recognized the great value 
of descriptive osteology, such work alone did not satisfy the 
demands of his mind. Although he wrote much on vertebrate 
paleontology, he was the describer of few new genera and 
species.. His constant effort was to discover the relationships 
of forms and the way in which they had originated. _He was 
thus impelled to study the homologies of the various bones and 
to attempt to connect them with the skeletons of more primi- 
tive forms. In many of his papers we find attempts made to 
unravel the genealogy of groups and to base classifications on 
this genealogy. His views regarding the scope and the methods 
of comparative osteology may be learned from a lecture pub- 
lished in’ Sczence, 1890, vol. xiv, p. 281." -* *°* *«dn .studigauey 
the development of the limbs, Dr. Baur held that the Amniota 
which possessed more than five fingers were highly specialized 
forms and not primitive ones, presenting transitions from the 
fishes. His view is now probably very generally accepted. 
«‘A number of his papers related to the structure and the 
systematic position of the leather-back turtle Dermochelys. He 
opposed strongly the views of Cope, Dollo, Boulenger, and 
Lydekker, that this reptile forms a suborder distinct from all 
other living tortoises. He regarded it as belonging to merely 
a highly specialized branch of the Pinnata, a group which 
contains our living sea turtles. 
«The structure and relationships of the Mosasauridz form 
the subject of several interesting papers. In opposition to Pro- 
fessor Cope, who maintained that these extinct reptiles bore 
special relationship to the snakes, Dr. Baur held that they 
were true lizards, closely related to the Varanidz, but modified 
for adaptation to an aquatic existence. An excellent paper on 
the structure of the skull of the Mosasauridz was published in 
the Journal of Morphology for 1892. 
“ As early as 1886 Dr. Baur wrote a paper on the homologies 
of the bones of the otic and temporal regions. His interest in 
ae «:'! 
