56 THE TRIAS AND OOLITE. 



season rings of the Craigleith conifers, speaking of the 

 identity of the familiar processes of nature in those early ages 

 with those of our own. 



Hearing of memorials of this kind will prepare the reader 

 to learn that the earliest intelligence we have respecting land- 

 walking animals consists, in great part, of their mere foot- 

 steps, impressed on the wet sand or mud, which afterwards 

 became rock. Let no one undervalue such testimony. The 

 fidelity of an impression from a foot, as certifying by what 

 or whose foot the impression was made, is acknowledged in 

 judicial procedure ; and often has this kind of evidence fixed 

 the opinion of judge and jury, when every other has failed. 



So much being premised, we proceed to examine the 

 Triassic reptiles. In the lower beds of the upper new red 

 sandstone, near Shrewsbury, we are introduced to a new 

 lacertilian, presenting some remarkable characters, and 

 named the Hhynchosaurus. From the few fragments of the 

 animal which have been discovered, it would appear to 

 have had a toothless head, resembling that of a bird, and en- 

 closed in a bony sheath ; also a hinder toe directed back- 

 wards, in which feature we also see an assimilation to the 

 next higher vertebrate class. Footmarks, impressed in the 

 way which has been described, and attributed to this animal, 

 confirm the appearances presented by the extraordinary ar- 

 rangement of its locomotive organs. 



In the same beds occur a few bones, and a great number of 

 footsteps, which Professor Owen has fixed as the double me- 

 morials of a group of animals, to which he has given (from 

 the structure of their teeth) the name of Labyrinthodonts, 

 and which he classes with the JBatrachia, that order of rep- 

 tiles to which the frog and toad belong. Those who are ac- 

 customed to regard this as a group of generally small and 

 insignificant animals, will be surprised to learn that the laby- 

 rinthodonts were of the size of a large hog. Their footmarks, 

 discovered alike in America and the elder continent, " bear a 

 singular resemblance to the impression that would be made by 

 the palm and expanded fingers and thumb of the human hand." 

 But it is evident that the four extremities of the animal had 



