TRIASSIC LABYRINTHODONS. 



197 



Fig. 2. 

 Foot-priuts of Labyritithudon. 



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plastic condition of such stones wlien so impressed at low water and receiving 

 successive tidal deposits of the same fine sand. 



Impressions and reliefs of such prints have been 

 traced for many steps in succession, in one instance of 

 which a portion is represented in the adjoining Cut. 

 They have been noted in Triassic formations of Warwick- 

 shire and Cheshire, and in a quarry of whitish quartzose 

 sandstone at Storeton Hill, a few miles fi'om Liverpool. 

 Some are hollow, as they were impressed, others are in 

 reHef, being natural casts ; always, respectively, on 

 opposite surfaces of the sandstone slabs. 



Such impressions or " ichnites " indicate vagrants of 

 different sizes. Those left by the hind foot, in the 

 largest kind, are eight inches in length, five inches in 

 width ; and near each, at a regular distance — about an 

 inch and a half in advance — is a smaller print of the 

 fore foot, four inches long and three inches wide. The 

 footsteps follow each other in pairs at intervals of about 

 fourteen inches from pair to pair. The large (hind) as 

 well as the small (fore) steps show the thumb-like outer 

 toe alternately on the right and left side, each step leaving 

 a print of five toes, in which there are no indication of 

 claws. 



Foot-prints of this kind were first observed in 

 Saxony, near Hillburghausen, in quarries of a Liassic 

 sandstone. Dr. Kaup, who (1836) described them, gave 

 the name of Gheirothermm to the animal that made them, 

 in reference to their resemblance to the impression left 

 by a human hand. But, led by a like disproportion 

 between the fore and hind limbs in the kangaroo, he 

 conjectured that they might indicate an extinct form of 

 the Marsupial order of quadrupeds. In Bklelphys, how- 

 ever, the thumb is on the inner, not the outer, side of 

 the hind foot, and is on a line with the other toes in the 

 fore foot. 



Decisive evidence of a species of Mammal being 

 in existence at the Triassic epoch has since been had ; 

 but the remains of Tritijlodon ^ have not yet revealed the 

 structure of the feet. 



' 'Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society,' February, 1884, p. 146, PI. VI. 



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