64 



THE CARBONIFEROUS. 



in the labyrinthodonts of the Carboniferous. On another slab there 

 seems to have been a soft place where the legs of the animal have 

 sunk deeply into the mud; and it would appear to have been mired, 

 extricating itself with some difficulty, and leaving deep marks of the 

 body and legs. 



These footprints must have been made on a subaerial surface, prob- 

 ably left dry by the recession of the tide, and rain must have fallen 

 shortly before the animal passed over it, as indicated by the pitted 

 appearance of the slabs. The trunk of the creature may have been 

 3 feet in length. Its tail, if it had such an appendage, must have 

 been short, or carried in the air without touching the ground. Its 

 legs were strong, and bore the body well above the surface when 

 walking. The only known Carboniferous batrachian of Nova Scotia 

 which could have made these impressions is Baphetes planiceps, 

 Owen, discovered by the author in the Coal-field of Pictou. Eosaurus 

 Acadiensis of Marsh, from the Joggins, was a creature of sufficient 

 size, but probably of different structure, and more exclusively aquatic 

 habits. 



The principal distinctive character of the present specimens is the 

 peculiar appendage on the hind foot, and from this Ave may give the 

 provisional name Sauropus unguifer to these footprints, until the 

 animal which produced them shall be known to us by its bones. 



It is interesting that in three localities in Nova Scotia, and two in 

 Pennsylvania, footprints of this general type and of the same size 

 have been found, indicating the wide diffusion and abundance of these 

 large batrachians in the Carboniferous period in North America, and 

 also that they were animals comparable in size and development of 

 limb with some of their successors in the Mesozoic period. 



One of the slabs in the rooms of the Survey shows a number of less 

 distinct footprints of an animal which may have been two-thirds of 

 the size of that above described, though possibly of the same species. 

 In the Provincial Museum of Halifax there is a slab with a series of 

 footprints similar to these. Dr Honeyman has also placed in the 

 same Museum a series of footprints, of the Dendrerpeton type, from 

 Great Village River. 



On another slab, and associated with the larger footprints, are some 

 small trifid impressions which seem to indicate the presence of a still 

 smaller animal, with feet of different form from those of the others. 

 These small trifid footprints are not dissimilar from those found by 

 Sir W. E. Logan, at Ilorton, in 1841, and which were the first 

 indications of reptilian life discovered in the Carboniferous. They 

 are also allied to those subsequently discovered by Dr Harding at 



