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Show 1 9 0 5 . ] PRIMITIVE REPTILE PROCOLOPHON. 2 2 5 tlie molar teeth of the mandible, which have not yet been examined. All the teeth contain large pulp-cavities, which extend into the cusps of the crowns. This type of dentition, notwithstanding the suppression of the functional canine teeth, as in Microgomphodon, is perhaps more like that of existing lizards than of Theriodonts, though there is a distinct resemblance to the teeth of some South-African Theriodont fossils, and the skull as a whole is not Lacertilian. Forms o f Skull.-Dr. Sclionland in 1895 submitted to me a series of casts of specimens of Procolophon in the Albany Museum, Grahamstown, obtained by Messrs. A. E. and H. Trollip, of Fern-rocks. He subsequently brought the original specimens to the British Museum, and gave me the opportunity of taking a series of impressions of the more important of them. Figures were prepared and the following notes drafted on these materials. A brief catalogue of the specimens was published by Dr. II. Broom, in 1903, in the ‘ Records of the Albany Museum,' vol. i. part 1, pp. 8-24, all the specimens being referred to Procolophon trigoni-ceps. Three specimens are figured by him. Among the casts are remains of a species of Petrophryne, which need to be carefully separated. Text-fig. 34. Impression of a palate of Procolophon, showing crowns of the molar teeth; from Fernrocks. The Fernrocks specimens appear to be referable to different species from those collected at Donnybrook. Dr. Broom finds but three teeth in each premaxillary, and in some specimens from Donnybrook there are four premaxillary teeth. In the British Museum specimen R. 794 (text-fig. 33, p. 224), which is the only Donnybrook specimen showing the entire palate, the palatal suture between the premaxillary and maxillary bones appears to be transverse and in advance of the first pair of maxillary teeth, which are level with the small group of palatal teeth at the anterior extremity of the vomerine bones. In the Fernrocks cast of the 15* |
