No. 501] 



NOTES AND LITERATURE 



629 



does not think he is expressing too heretical an opinion when 

 he doubts the great importance of this region in the primary 

 classification of the reptiles. The grouping of the reptiles into 

 two subclasses, the Diapsida and Synapeida, based chiefly upon 

 the temporal structure, is rejected by most students of the 

 reptiles, and the very aberrant structure of this region in the 

 pelycosaurs, especially the presence of a ' ' prosquamosal " bone, 

 rather shakes one's faith. However, we are not quarrelling 

 with the author for not going into these doubtful discussions. 

 He has, what is better, given us excellent material for future 

 philosophizing in his full and lucid descriptions and many 

 illustrations. S. W. Williston. 



The Conrad Fissure. 1 — Mr. Brown has given us in this paper an 

 excellent critical and descriptive list, well illustrated, of a very 

 important pleistocene bone deposit, especially interesting as 

 located in the southwest. The material, for the most part col- 

 lected, and it need not be said skillfully collected by the author, 

 is abundant, including seven species of insectivores, two of bats, 

 nineteen of carnivores, as many of rodents, and nine of ungu- 

 lates, together with several of amphibians and reptiles. Of these 

 he describes a new twenty species and two genera, the more 

 noteworthy of the new genera being one of a new type of saber- 

 toothed cats. Conspicuous for their absence are remains of the 

 large edentates and of the proboscideans, from which the author 

 is inclined to the belief that the former, at least, were not then in 

 existence in North America. That some of the sloths were in 

 existence in South America at that period is more than probable, 

 if we take into account Gryphotherium, and the same logic would 

 exclude the proboscideans from the fauna, which is not at all 

 probable. He also concludes that the fauna was boreal, as indeed 

 would be indicated by the remains of musk oxen. The paper is 

 a valuable addition to our faunal pleistocene literature. 



S. W. Williston. 



The Ankylosauridae. 1 — Mr. Brown has given us a rather 

 startling restoration of what he believed to be a new family of 



