258 
PROFESSOR H. G. SEELEY ON THE STRUCT ERE, ORGANIZATION, 
The Left Pubic Bone of Titanosuchus ferox. (Plate 16, fig. 4.) 
The forms of pubis among Anomodonts vary chiefly in the position and direction of 
the perforating foramen and extent of union with the ischium. Sir R. Owen has 
catalogued one type as “ the coalesced humeral ends of the right scapula and 
coracoid of Pareiasaurus bomhidens” from Vers Fontein; and has given the same 
osteological interpretation to a similar specimen referred to Dicynodon leoniceps, from 
Graaff-Reinet. In these specimens the obturator foramen is narrow and extended 
transversely ; its direction is inward and upward. 
Another type is seen in the specimen described in the same catalogue as the left 
os innominatum of Dicynodon leoniceps, Plate XXVIII. Here the obturator foramen 
of the pubis has a more anterior position, and is directed obliquely forward so as 
to emerge on the inner side of the anterior margin of the pubic bone (Plate XXVIII., 
fig. 2). 
The bone now to be described (Brit. Mus. 49,367) approaches in general character to 
the latter type, but is larger, is pierced by the foramen for a greater antero-posterior 
distance, while the anterior opening of the foramen is hidden by a sharp anterior 
border to the bone. The naiTow transverse median articular surface, about 2'5 centims. 
thick, by which the pubes met in the median line, would indicate that the position of 
the bone was ventral and horizontal, and nearly at right angles to the ilium. 
The bone is greatly thickened at the acetabular end, where it unites with the ilium ; 
but it is otherwise a moderately thin plate, slightly concave between the acetabulum 
and the median suture, measures 20 centims. wide, and is convex from front to back 
anterior to the obturator foramen. The anterior margin is strongly concave, but The 
concavity, which is 7 centims. deep proximally, becomes narrower distally, and twisted 
inward so as to merge in the visceral surface, which is saddle-shaped at the anterior 
end, and otherwise flattened, so that the two opposite sides converged downward in a 
broad V-shape. 
The articular end, which is sub-triangular, with the short side in front, is about 
20 centims. long, by 12 centims. deep. It is divided by a longitudinal angle into an 
inferior acetabular part, about 7 centims. deep, and a superior iliac surface of similar 
depth, which was longer. 
The posterior or ischiac border of the bone is fractured, so that it is not possible to 
judge of the exact size of this transversely sub-ovate bone ; but the anterior extent of 
the ischio-pubic symphysis is a distinction from the Dicynodont types, while the 
relatively small size of the pre-pubic tuberosity is a distinction from Phocosaurus. 
That tuberosity may be indicative of affinity; for, if it covered the whole anterior 
border of the bone, the Anomodont pubis w^ould be more easily compared with that 
* ‘South African Catalogue,’ p. II, p. 35. 
