CLASPING ORGANS OF AMPHIBIA. 255 



parts of the abdominal armature it is to be expected that the 

 forms of the Amphibia which lived during Laramie times would 

 have the armature well developed as they almost certainly had 

 the clasping organs. When the Laramie Amphibia are better 

 known they will, without doubt, be found to have at least some 

 representation of an abdominal armature. 



How these clasping organs served the purpose for which they 

 seem to be developed is, in large part, a matter of conjecture 

 since we do not know and in all probability never can know the 

 method of copulation in the extinct forms. It is a matter which 

 is well known that the male of the common newt retains the 

 female by means of roughnesses developed on the inner side of 

 the hind limbs and why may not the clasping organs, above 

 described, have served the extinct forms in a similar manner? 

 Of course it is readily seen that they would be of more service 

 to the limbless forms like Ophiderpeton than they would to forms 

 like Scapherpeton which, in all probability, had well developed 

 limbs. It is possible that the clasping organs in Scapherpeton, if 

 they belong to this form, were vestigial and were not functional 

 or they may have belonged to limbless forms of which there is 

 no knowledge unless Hemitrypus is a limbless amphibian. 



So far as I am aware, the clasping organs are found in associa- 

 tion with limbless forms only. Such was the case in all of those 

 described by Fritsch. The form of limbless amphibian described 

 by Huxley x from the Coal-measures of Ireland seems not to 

 have had the clasping organs preserved or at least they have not 

 been detected. The " Kammplatten " discovered by Stock, 

 Barkas and Traquair in the rocks of England were not asso- 

 ciated with other remains so we do not know to what type of 

 amphibian they belonged, although a species of Ophiderpeton, 0. 

 nanum Hancock and Atthey, has been described from this region. 

 In the Linton, Ohio, deposits there occur a number of forms which 

 are limbless. The species of Ptyonins, Molgophis, Hyphasma, 

 Phlegetliontia and possibly a species of Osetocephalus also was 

 limbless, although there would seem to be indications of limbs 

 in the other species. In any case the first four probably do not 

 possess limbs and in Molgophis, apparently, the abdominal rods 



1 Huxley, 1867, Trans. Roy. Irish Acad., Vol. XXIV., p. 353. 



