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Show 1882.] PROF. l'ARKER ON THE SKULL OF THE CROCODILIA. 97 January 17, 1882. Prof. Flower, LL.D., F.R.S., President, in the Chair. The following report on the additions to the Society's Menagerie during the month of December 1881 was read by the Secretary: - The total number of registered additions to the Society's Menagerie during the month of December 1881 was 82, of which 8 were by birth, 39 by presentation, 26 by purchase, and 9 were received on deposit. The total number of departures during the same period, by death and removals, was 82. The most noticeable additions during the month were:- 1. A young male Guemul Deer (Farcifer chilensis), from Patagonia, purchased December 22nd of the Jardin d'Acclimatatiou of Paris. This animal has lately shed its horns, and is now growing a new pair. 2. A Germain's Peacock-Pheasant (Polyplectron germaini), purchased December 24th. Both these accessions are of species new to the Society's series. Prof. Newton exhibited, by favour of Messrs. Hallett & Co., the skin and bones of the trunk of a specimen of Notornis mantelli, recently received by them from New Zealand, and stated to have been obtained in the province of Otago about eighteen months ago. Prof. Newton pointed out that the sternum figured in the Society's ' Transactions' (vol. iv. pl. 4. figs. 5-8) as of this species must belong to a totally different form. Prof. W . K. Parker, F.R.S., read a memoir on the skull of the Crocodilia, of which the following is an abstract:- " The Crocodilia have seen the rise and fall of several Reptilian dynasties, and even now they are in no danger of extinction. Their development is precisely like that of the Sauropsida generally (the other Reptiles, and Birds) ; but in some very important respects they anticipate cranial modifications that only come to perfection in the Mammalia. " It is difficult, at first, to see in what their embryo differs from that of a bird ; but the long tail is diagnostic ; this, however, would not always have served that purpose, as the avian contemporaries of the Crocodiles of the Oolite had tails relatively as long as those of the Crocodiles. " The near approach to that modification of the skull which is seen in the Bird is very remarkable in the early stages of the Crocodile ; but whilst the one becomes as light as a quill, the other becomes as heavy as the armour of a Tortoise; yet in the adult Crocodile the whole hind skull is a labyrinth of air-cavities, which PROC. ZOOL. Soc-1882, No. VII. 7 |