404 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF 



ON FOSSIL REMAINS OF EEPTILIA AND FISHES FROM ILLINOIS. 



BY E. D. COPE. 



John Collett, the accomplished assistant of Prof. Cox of the 

 Geological Survey of Indiana, recently submitted to my examina- 

 tion a number of vertebrate remains from some point in Illinois. 

 The specimens were taken from a blackish shale, and consist of 

 separate vertebra? and other elements of the skeleton, often in a 

 fragmentary condition. Although the absence of information as 

 to the mutual relations of the pieces renders the identification 

 difficult, yet the interest attaching to them, in consequence of 

 their peculiar forms and the locality of their discovery, renders 

 it important to determine their zoological position. Mr. Collett 

 informs me that all the specimens were found near together, and 

 at the same horizon, by Dr. Winslow. Much credit is due to Dr. 

 Winslow for the painstaking labor bestowed in procuring and 

 cleaning the specimens, and for his liberality in presenting them 

 to the geological collection. 



A remarkable peculiarity of all the vertebras of the series is the 

 longitudinal axial perforation of the centrum. They present the 

 character observed in Archegosaurus and other Stegocephalous 

 Batrachia ; but which also exists, according to Giinther, in the 

 living Rhynchocephalous lizard the Sphenodon of New Zealand. 

 The bones of the limbs and scapular arches are so decidedly 

 reptilian, and so unlike those of any Batrachia with which we are 

 yet acquainted, that I am disposed to refer them to the former 

 class. And as there are several points in which the fossils re- 

 semble the order Rhynchocephalia, I refer them provisional!}' to 

 that neighborhood. They constitute the first definite indication 

 of the existence of animals of that type in the western hemisphere. 



Associated with these saurians were found teeth of two species 

 of fishes, which are important in evidence of the position of the 

 beds in which they occur. One of these is a new species of Gera- 

 todus, Agass., and the other a Diplodus. The former genus is 

 characteristic of the Triassic period in Europe, one species having 

 been found in the Oolite. It still lives in North Australia. In 

 both these respects the Rhynchocephalian lizards present a re- 

 markable coincidence. They also belong to the horizon of the 



