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Show 1876.] PROF. FLOWER ON THE SKULL OF A XIPHODO-V. 3 characteristic of this species, is obvious. Each feather is worked into the flax of the mat. No. 3. A mat of wing-feathers of the Kaka (Nestor meridionalis), made by the natives near Wellington. The following papers were read :- 1. Description of the Skull of a Species of Xiphodon, Cuvier. By WILLIAM H E N R Y FLOWER, F.R.S., F.Z.S., F.G.S., &c. [Received November 16, 1875.] (Plate I.) The Hon. Auberon Herbert has lately presented to the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons a fossil cranium which merits description, as in some measure assisting to fill up one of the still innumerable vacant spaces in the vast and complex history of living beings, a history gradually, slowly, but no less surely, being reconstructed by the united labours of explorers and palaeontographers in all parts of the world. In some respects, the specimen is provokingly unsatisfactory for the purpose, partly from its own incompleteness, but especially in the absence of certain knowledge as to its locality and geological antiquity. As it had passed through several hands before itcaineinto Mr. Herbert's possession, there is no external history belonging to it, except a traditional statement that it was found in the neighbourhood of Woodbridge, in Suffolk. At first little more was to be seen in it than an ovoid mass, nearly nine inches long, of dark grey, very compact, micaceous sandstone, with the surface smoothly rounded, and almost polished, evidently by the action of water. To a superficial observer it might have passed for a large rolled pebble ; but closer examination showed that, besides having the general form of the head of an animal, the surface here and there presented darker patches, having a distinctly bony structure, which, from their situation and form, plainly revealed the general outline of the cranium within. After a considerable amount of trouble, the closely adhering enveloping matrix was completely cleared away. The specimen was then shown to consist of the almost entire cranium (skull without lower jaw) of an animal of the size of a small sheep, with all its cavities and external depressions filled up with a matrix of the above-described sandstone, and then so rolled as to wear down some of the most prominent parts, as the zygomatic arch and, unfortunately the whole of the crowns of the teeth ; for the palatal surface was exposed, smooth and polished, and the dental characters are only indicated by the alveoli or by roots worn down to the level of the surrounding bone. This is a very great loss, more especially as it is mainly by the form of the enamelled crowns of the teeth, generally |