466 | General Notes. [May, 
has shown that the intercentrum in Sphenodon is complete in 
the caudals; I can add that the same condition is to be found in 
the præcaudal vertebre also. This makes Professor Cope’s view 
f of the Embolomeri being the batrachian type ancestral to the 
-= Reptilia, still stronger. 
Fritsch’ believes that he has found the representatives of the 
pleurocentra in the cervicals of a young Sphenodon; the preezyga- 
3 pophyses, he says, represent these elements; which are devel- 
oped from a distinct point of ossification (according to Fritsch). 
I examined two Sphenodons in alcohol (one about 290™™ long). 
I could not find such a condition, and nobody will find it, not 
even in embryos. Archegosaurus has well developed praezyga- 
pophyses, deszdes the pleurocentra. In zo vertebrate are the præ- 
don makes no exception. The “centrum” of the vertebra in 
reptiles and mammals is formed by the pleurocentra ; and embry- 
ology of the Reptilia will probably show that the centrum is de- 
1886, 
_ and proportion the skull approaches most closely to Z. gervais. 
——Sowerby’s whale (Mesoplodon bidens) has been found upon 
the coast of Yorkshire. A male specimen fifteen feet nine inches 
_ long yas left stranded in shallow water at the entrance to the 
Humber, Fourteen instances of the occurrence of this species 
~ On various parts of the European coast and one in North America 
_ (Nantucket, 1867) are enumerated (Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 
Jas, 1886). | 
_ __ Reptiles, etc — Mr. A. B. Macallum (Quart. Journ. Mic. Sc» 
Nov., 1886), gives the following summary of the results of his 
: _ 1 Fritsch, A. Fauna der Gaskohle, Bd. m1, Heft 11, Prag, 1885. 
e veloped from two lateral elements.—Dr. G. Baur, March 23, 
