254 R0Y L - MOODIE. 



exhibit, so far as I am aware, any evidences of the clasping 

 organs and this is the only form which is intermediate in age 

 between the Carboniferous forms and the Laramie ones. The 

 Labyrinthodontia which existed in the Permian and Trias are 

 highly specialized and so cannot be taken into account in this 

 regard. Newberry, 1 however, was strongly inclined to the idea 

 that the " Kammplatten " were in reality fish teeth as Barkas 

 and Traquair had thought. He says it will take strong evidence 

 to convince him of the fact that they are amphibian. He mentions 

 the discovery of several of the " Kammplatten " in the Linton beds 

 and says they differ but little from those described by Fritsch. 



Fortunately the exact location of those objects in the anatomy 

 of the extinct amphibians is not a matter of conjecture, but of 

 actual knowledge, since Fritsch has discovered them in place on 

 the specimen of Ophiderpeton persnadens Fr. above referred to. 

 That they are but modified elements of the ventral armature is 

 also beyond a doubt since Fritsch found intermediate forms of 

 the ventral chevron rods and figured several of them. A copy 

 of one of these rods is given in Fig. 4. The abdominal arma- 



Fig. 4. A slender, toothless clasping organ from the Permian of Bohemia. After 

 Fritsch. 



ture is almost universal among the Carboniferous forms of the 

 Amphibia, being unknown in a few forms such as Pelion lyelli 

 Wyman and Molgophis macrums Cope, so that we may expect 

 to learn of forms which had the clasping rods developed and of 

 which there is now no knowledge. What purpose the abdominal 

 chevron rods served is not at present apparent but that the pos- 

 terior rods near the cloacal region became specialized into clasp- 

 ing organs for the retention of the female during the breeding 

 season seems almost beyond dispute. 



Since the clasping organs are thus shown to be but specialized 



'Newberry, 1889, Monograph, U. S. G. S., Vol. XVI., p. 228. 



