362 _ General Notes, 
skeleton of the paired finsareinconstant,some of those of the praxial 
parameres of the pectorals and the basal mesomere of pectorals and 
pelvic fins; that a reduced metapterygrum is always present in the 
pectorals, and may occasionally be traced in the ventrals; and that 
the basal mesomere of the Ceratodus fin may conceivably have been 
derived from the metapterygium. The structural features of both 
paired fins of the Chimeroids are identical, and characterized by 
the absence of a mesopterygium, and the paired fins of Plagios- 
tomes and Dipnoans have probably arisen from a type of fin most 
nearly represented by that of the living Chimeeroids. 
Prof. T. J. Parker describes and figures, in the Proceedings of 
the Zoological Society of London, the skeleton, fins, heart, brain, 
etc., of Carcharodon rondeletii, from specimens taken near Dunedin, 
New Zealand. A peculiarity in external form, scarcely noticed 
previously, is the depression of the tail just in front of the caudal 
fin, so much so that the width is more than double the height. 
Prof. Parker believes that this flattening, present also in Lamna, 
gives a combination of horizontal with vertical tail-fin, useful 
as a means of enabling the fish to rise rapidly from great 
depths. ° 
r. Francis Day has lately published a work on British and 
Irish Salmonide. He regards the different forms of non-migra- 
tory trout known as Brook trout, Lochleven trout, Crasspuill trout, 
Estuary trout, Orkney trout, Cornish trout, Great Lake trout, 
Gillaroo trout, and Swaledale trout, as varieties of one species, 
and all the species of char as identical with Salmo salvelinus. 
ReptiLes.—Mr. C. M. Woodford has recently returned from th 
Solomon Islands with a collection of over two hundred reptiles, 
which have been examined by Mr. G. A. Boulenger. The fact that 
this large collection contained but four new forms indicates that the 
reptilian fauna of these islands is pretty well known. 
Mr. F. E. Beddard notes the presence of a peritoneal fold in the 
genus Monitor, separating the lungs from the abdominal viscera, 
and corresponding to a similar structure in the Crocodilia. 
Meo G oulenger describes a Leptodactylus, three 
species of Lygosoma, ops aluensis, and the Batrachia 
Hyla lutea and Batrachylodes vertebralis, from a collection made 
in the Solomon Islands by Mr. C. M. Woodford. 
Two lizards, Varanus niloticus and Chameleon owenii, and the 
snakes Naia haje and Dendraspis angusticeps, were collected by 
Mr. Johnston, at a height of 2000 feet on the Cameroons Moun- 
ins. 
M. L. Vaillant (Bull. d.1. Soc. Philo. de Paris) has recently 
described a new species of land-tortoise (Testulo yniphora) from one 
of the Comoro Isles, or from an islet in their vicinity. The cara- 
pace of the largest specimen is about fifteen and a half inches long, 
