CHAPTER VII. 



TIIK EMPIRE OF THE GREAT REPTILES. 



HAD we lived in the Carl^oaiferous period, we might liave 

 supposed that the line of the great Labyrinthodont 

 IJatrachians would have been continued onward and elevated, 

 perhaps, in the direction of the Mammalia, to which some 

 features of their structure point. liut we should have been 

 mistaken in this. The Lal^yrinthodonts, it is true, extend into 

 the Trias ; but there is ])erhaps a sign of their coming degra- 

 dation in the appearance in the Permian of the first known 

 mud-eel, a humble Batrachian form allied to the Newts and 

 Water-lizards.^ Their s])ecial peculiarities are dropped in the 

 Mesozoic in favour of those of certain small and feeble lizard- 

 like animals, appearing first in the Carboniferous, and more 

 manifestly in the Permian, and which are the true forerunners, 

 though they can scarcely be the ancestors, of the magnificent 

 rei)tilian species of the Mesozoic, which have caused this 

 period to be called "the age of reptiles." 



The leading reptilian animal from the European Permian 

 has long been the Proterosauruy.. from the cnpi)er slates of 

 Thuringia (Fig. 141), a rei)tile of lizard-like form, with well- 

 developed limbs, and attaining a length of three or four feet. 

 It resembles more nearly those large modern lizards known as 



^ J'alicosiii'ii In'ineftii of (jcinilz. 



