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tralian V. varius Shaw, the latter one genetically most likely closely 
enough related to V. salvator Laur., though less massive in structure. 
With these species moreover, the construction of the vertebrae is also 
robuster, although the striking contradiction existing between the small 
recent vertebrae provided with a large spinal canal, and the fossil ver¬ 
tebrae about twice the size of the former, yet connected with a spinal 
canal only about as large, can here also be observed. This particularity 
seems to justify Bolkay’s observation regarding the course of disossi¬ 
ti cation in Reptiles and Amphibians (op cit.), although applicable to all 
Vertebrates ; the desossification does not therefore lie merely in the 
phenomenon remarked by Bolkay of the disappearance of a robuster 
structure of the skeleton, but is inT. griseus also expressed by the fact 
of the deepening of the hollows (sulci laterales) inside the neural canal 
(see description of the dorsal vertebrae), which may be observed chiefly on 
the cervical and dorsal vertebrae, and, in lesser degree, on the caudal ones. 
Another process of desossification takes place by the reduction of some 
osseous surfaces and ridges forming io V. marathonensis the massive 
structure of the bones. 
Regarding the geological age of this species it has still been found 
in the Praeglacial strata of South-Hungary, and seems to have 
vanished — at least from Europe — owing to the Glacial Period’s cli¬ 
mate, naturally subsisting longer on some more sheltered spots, as pro¬ 
ved by its præhistorical (Neoliti c) occurrence at the Arene 
Candide in Italy. 
Habitat: Pikermi (Greece) ; Beremend and Csarnóta (South-Hungary) ; 
Arene Candide (Italy). 
4. Var anus sivalensis. Falc. — Pliocene. 
Falconer, Palæont. Memoirs, Vol. I, Fauna Ant. Sivalensis, London, 1868, PI. 
32, Figs. 4—7, & Text : «Descr. of Pl. XXXII, Figs. 4, 5, 6 and 7». 
Lydekker, Ind. Tért. and post- Tért. Vert., Siwalik Crocod., Lacert., and Ophid., 
Mem. Geo], Surv. Ind , Palæont. Ind., Ser. X, Vol. Ill, Calcutta, 1884-86, p. 236, PI. 
XXXV, Figs. 1, la, 16. — Ind. Ten. and post-Tert. Vert., Fauna of the Kamui Caves, 
op. cit., Ser. X, Vol. IV, Calcutta, 1892, p. 55, Fig. 11. 
Nopcsa, Beitr. z. KLenntn. Foss. Eid., B itr. z. Paläont. u. G?ol. Öst.-Ung., Bd. 
XXI, Wien und Leipzig, 1908, p. 48. 
Varanus sivalensis is a well defined species, of great size, the largest 
varanoid Lizard hitherto known, measuring eleven feet in length, as 
approximately calculated by Lydekker 1 . This large habit by which V . 
1 Palæont. Ind. Ser. X, Vol. Ill, p. 236. 
