128 PICTUKESQUE SKETCHES 



often not more than an inch or two, even in the larger 

 specimens, thus indicating a very great inequality in 

 the length as well as magnitude of the two extremi- 

 ties. Beyond the facts thus made known by the 

 form and proportions, and the relative as well as 

 actual size of the foot-prints, there was no evidence 

 whatever for a long time concerning the animal that 

 had produced them. 



At length, however, teeth and other bones were also 

 discovered in the quarries of new red sandstone, and 

 these were referred by their first discoverer to sup- 

 posed crocodilian animals of considerable size. The 

 more careful examination of these and other fossils 

 by Professor Owen has greatly tended to throw 

 light on the singular footsteps of the so-called 

 Chirotherium^ since they prove the existence of a 

 reptilian genus, several species of which have been 

 already determined, and which would seem to have 

 possessed extremities capable of impressing those 

 foot-marks, and certainly inhabiting the sea-shore in 

 the place and at the time of their formation : this 

 animal is now called Labyrinthodon* 



The result of the investigations terminating in 

 the establishment of this genus seems to be, that 

 the animals referred to it were intimately related to 

 the salamander and the frog, belonging to the same 

 order of Batrachian reptiles. But they exhibited 

 peculiarities of structure connecting this tribe with 

 the crocodiles, although the modifications of the jaws 

 and palate, the arrangement of the teeth, and the 

 disproportionate size of the hinder extremities, point 



* Aafiugnfas (labyrintlius), a labyrinth ; obavs (odous\ a tooth: so called 

 from the complex or labyrinthine structure of a section of the tooth, as seen 

 under the microscope. 



