THECODONTIA 255 



cemented by carbonate of lime, situated between " Old Red " 

 and " Purbeck " formations, and resting conformably upon the 

 former, evidences of Saurian (Crocodilian and Lacertian) 

 reptiles, characteristic of triassic time, have been discovered. 

 The remains of the large reptile, with pitted bony dermal 

 scales, had been, on their first discovery, referred to a genus of 

 fishes by Agassiz, under the name of Staganolciris, or " pitted- 

 scale," probably from the belief that the formation belonged 

 to the "Old Eed System." I determined the crocodilian 

 nature of the scales, and the affinity of the reptile to the 

 Thecodonts, in the breadth of the coracoid or pubis as shown 

 by the cast of the bone, at the meeting of the British Associa- 

 tion at Leeds, in September 1858. I have since been favoured 

 by Mr. Duff with a tooth, assoicated with scales of Staganolepis, 

 which is " thecodont " in character, and like that of Claclyodon. 



In the same sandstone, in the quarry at Cummingstone, 

 near Elgin, a continuous series of thirty-four impressions have 

 been observed. The impressions are in pairs, forming two 

 parallel rows, the hind one being one inch in diameter. 



I had some years before determined the true saurian 

 nature of the impression of the skeleton of the trunk and part 

 of the head of a small reptile discovered by Mr. Patrick Duff 

 of Elgin, at Spynie, and noticed by him in the " Elgin Courant " 

 of October 10th, 1851, as evidence of an air-breathing vertebrat 

 in " Old Eed Sandstone." The specimen was submitted by Mr. 

 Duff to my examination, the result of which was given, Dec. 

 1 5, 1851, in the " Literary Gazette " of that week, as follows : — 



"It is the impression, in two pieces, of a grey variety 

 of the old red sandstone, of a long and slender four-footed 

 vertebrate animal, four inches and a half in length, clearly 

 belonging, by the form, proportions, and positions of the 

 scapular and pelvic arches, and their appended limbs, to the 

 reptilian class. The osseous substance has disappeared ; the 

 cavities in the sandstone which contained it remain, stained 



