Animals Before Man 



are quite characteristic, being shorter, broader, 

 and more hand-like than those made by rep- 

 tiles, while they never show the marks of 

 claws, these appendages not being developed in 

 animals below the grade of reptiles. So like 

 the print of a hand are the impressions left by 

 the feet of some labyriuthodouts that certain 

 tracks in the Triassic sandstone of Germany 

 have been dubbed Cheirotherium (hand beast). 

 In this instance it is quite correct to say that 

 the tracks have been named, for the animal 

 that actually made them is as yet unknown, 

 although suspicion points at one of the great 

 amphibians whose remains occur in the same 

 formation. 



Amphibians, both small and large, occur in 

 the Lower Carboniferous strata of western 

 Europe, but in North America the first known 

 specimens, aside from the footprints just men- 

 tioned, are from the Upper Carboniferous, and 

 were found in some petrified tree trunks in a 

 coal-mine at South Joggins, Nova Scotia ; hence 

 the name of Dendrerpeton (tree reptile) was 

 bestowed upon them by their describer, Pro- 



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