88 EXTINCT MONSTERS 



admit, but useful, because it partly serves to describe them. 

 Scientific men are said to be very fond of long Latin and Greek 

 names, but such can hardly be avoided ; and there is this to be 

 said for them that the names they use are much more exact 

 than the popular ones by which plants and animals are com- 

 monly known, and, moreover, they often convey a great deal of 

 information in a brief manner. Now, the name given to the 

 creatures we are about to describe is Labyrinthodonts. 



It was Sir Eichard Owen who first accurately described the 

 fossil amphibians, and they received this name from him. Let 

 us see what the name means and how it applies. Sir Eichard 

 Owen's acquaintance with these remarkable forms of ancient life 

 began in the year 1840, when he first examined certain teeth from 

 the New Eed Sandstone of Coton End quarry, Warwickshire. 

 In external character these fragmentary teeth corresponded 

 with those which had been previously discovered in Germany 

 (in Wiirtemberg) by Professor Jaeger, and which had been called 

 by him Mastodonsaurus. This name was not a happy one, 

 because it suggested an association with an extinct elephant, 

 the Mastodon, with which this amphibian, it is hardly necessary 

 to say, had no connection, real or imaginary. Owen examined 

 the teeth of the fossils from Germany, as well as those from 

 Warwickshire, and found that, when cut across into transverse 

 sections for the microscope, they revealed a very remarkable and 

 complicated structure ; the whole of the internal portion was 

 seen to be made up of a complex series of foldings, forming a 

 peculiar structure, suggesting a labyrinth the external layer of 

 cement belonging to the tooth converging in numerous folds 

 towards the pulp-cavity. And so the name Labyrinthodonts 

 reminds us that all, or nearly all, the fossil animals included 

 under the above general term possess teeth having this 



