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OBSEEVATIONS ON SOME SPECIMENS OF SOUTH AFEICAN 
FOSSIL EEPTILES PKESEEVED IN THE BEITISH 
MUSEUM. 
By E. Broom, M.D., D.Sc, F.E.S.S.Af. 
(Eead October 20, 1909.) 
The British Museum can still claim to have a larger collection of 
South African fossil reptiles than any other museum, and this collection 
is specially valuable in that it contains all Owen's types and most of 
Seeley's. As it is over thirty years since the large majority of Owen's- 
specimens vv^ere described, and as much new light has been thrown on the 
Karroo reptiles in recent years, it seemed necessary to re-examine a 
number of the less well-known types. 
When recently in London I was enabled, through the kindness of 
Dr. Smith Woodward and Dr. Andrews, to examine all the specimens I 
wished to see, and to settle a number of points on which there wa& 
some doubt. 
Galesaurus. 
In 1859 Owen described, under the name Galesaurus planiceps, a fairly 
good skull of a small Cynodont reptile from the Sneeuwberg. In the 
" Catalogue of the South African Fossil Eeptiles," published in 1876, 
a small, very imperfect skull of a somewhat similar Cynodont is 
described under the name Nythosaurus larvatus. In 1887 a very fine 
new skull was described by Owen as another specimen of Galesaurus 
planiceps. Seeley, in 1894, pointed out that this last specimen differed 
in many points from the original type, and proposed for it the new 
name Thrinaxodon liorhinus. Eecently two other specimens have been 
procured, which have not been described but which manifestly belong 
to the same species as the 1887 specimen. 
When the various specimens are carefully studied it becomes clear 
that Seeley was right in deciding that the specimen described by Owen in 
1887 is a very different animal from Galesaurus planiceps as represented 
by the 1859 type. The recently procured specimens, while belonging to 
the same species as the 1887 specimen, show that the imperfect skull 
described as Nythosattrus larvatus also belongs to the same species. We 
