THE CARBONIFEROUS AGE. 149 



created, the next best animals may have been entitled 

 to wear their clothes and to assume their functions as 

 well. In short, functionally or officially, our ancient 

 batrachians were reptiles; in point of rank, as mea- 

 sured by type of skeleton, they belonged to a lower 

 grade. To this view of the case I think most natural- 

 ists will agree, and they will also admit that the pro- 

 gress of our views has been in this direction, since 

 the first discovery of Carboniferous air-breathing 

 vertebrates. In evidence of this I may quote from 

 Professor Huxley's description of his recently found 

 species * After noticing the prevalent views that the 

 coal reptiles were of low organization, he says : " Dis- 

 coveries in the Nova Scotia coal-fields first shook 

 this view, which ceased to be tenable when the great 

 Anthracosaurus of the Scotch coal-field was found to 

 have well-ossified biconcave vertebrae/' 



The present writer may, however, be suspected of 

 a tendency to extend forms of life backward in time, 

 since it has fallen to his lot to be concerned in this 

 process of stretching backward in several cases. He 

 has named and described the oldest known animal. 

 He has described the oldest true exogen, and the 

 oldest known pine-tree. He was concerned in the 

 discovery of the oldest known land snails, and found 

 the oldest millipedes. He has just described the 

 oldest bituminous bed composed of spore-cases, and 

 he claims that his genus Hylonomus includes the 



* Geological Magazine, vol. iii. 



