110 



THE FAR PAST. 



order whose remains have not been discovered with cer- 

 tainty in any preceding formation. From the European and 



CARBONIFEROUS FISHES. 



1 , Palaeoniscus ; 2, Amblypterus. 



lS r ova Scotian coal-fields, however, we have five or six genera 

 of frog-like and lizard-like forms some evidently aquatic, 

 others amphibious, and some fitted for an arboreal habitat. 

 They are known by such names as archoeogosaurus (ancient 

 land-lizard), parabatraclius (frog-like reptile), and dendrer- 

 peton (tree-lizard), and carry the imagination back to stag- 

 nant pools, to sludgy river-shores, and to ancient forest- 

 growths, whose hollow trunks furnished at once their insect- 

 food and a place of security and shelter. In these early 

 reptiles in the persistence of their dorsal chord, their gill- 

 arches, their large median and lateral throat-plates, and 

 other piscine characters Professor Owen traces a " linking 

 and blending" of the two cold-blooded vertebrate groups ; 

 arcliffiogosaurus conducting, as it were, the inarch of life 



