Jávorka Sándor - Soós Lajos (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 29. (Budapest 1935)
Fejérváry, G. J.: Further contributions to a monograph of the Megalanidae and fossil Varanidae - with notes on recent Varanians
pared with the specimens shown in OWEN'S figures because the orp ginals concerned do not belong to the very sameportion of the vertebral column, and so no satisfactory result can be obtained if absolute identity be searched for. OWEN'S specimen referred to above, e. g., belongs to the series of the middle dorsals — neither it might be one of the anteriors within this set — whilst Mr. ETHERIDGE'S remain is either a member of the series immediately precedent to the sacrum, about a dorsolumbal, or, if conclusion may be drawn from evidences obtaining (in many) a \aranian species and other Lacertilians, a second sacral, or a first or a second caudal, not yet provided with the chevron bones characteristic to the overwhelming majority of caudal vertebrae — only the first one, or ones> and, to a certain degree and in special cases, the very terminals constituting exceptions to this general rule. Thus the two vertebrae here dealt with must, eo ipso, exhibit differences evolved from their topographically aberrant lay, it being a well known fact that the vertebral column had to differentiate, with respect to function and cast of its elements, into several divisions, the mode of this portioning off mainly depending on kinetomechanical factors, which are the determiners of most the seriate gradations and modifications occurring within this range. To conclude: there are, in fact, differences to be established between OWEN'S and ETHERIDGE'S specimens, but these are, by no means, of any systematic or individual bearing, nor do they point to some inaccuracy obtaining in OWEN'S figures; indeed, they are self-evident and compulsive, a fact that is pot outstanding at all in Mr. ETHERIDGE'S dealing with the subject. Divisioncharacteristicsof this vertebrae are: the very large and rather rounded ball, its height (measured vertically to the axis of body) markedly exceeding its breadth, contrarily to those vertebrae which we are acquainted with as representatives of the more rostrad series, differing in the same marking from the sacral (cfr, OWEN, op. cit. Pl. 35, Fig. 1) and, though to a less degree, from the mesial caudals (cfr. ibid.). If approximate conclusions may be drawn from conditions obtaining in the Varanians, the fact should be pointed out that in V. griseus DAUD., e. g., the first sacral (vert. XXX.) presents a broad and dorsoventrally much flattened ball, whilst the same part being narrower and more spherical in the second sacral; in the first and second caudal (XXXIIth & XXXIIIth vert.) we again meet with a more widened and flattened ball, the spherical form emerging again with the XXXIVth vertebra, which is the third caudal, and this shape prevails unto the terminal series, in the elements of
