156 REPORT — 1859. 



Dr. Gergens placed bis supposed ' Salamander' in the hands of M. Her- 

 mann von Meyer for description, who communicated the result of his exami- 

 nation in a later number of the under-cited journal*. 



In this notice the author states that the Salamander-affinities of the fossil 

 in question, for which he proposes the name of Apateon pedestris, " are by no 



means demonstrated f Its head might be that of a fish, as well as of a 



lizard or of a batrachian There is no trace of bones or limb3." M. v. 



Meyer concludes by stating that, " in order to test the hypothesis of the 

 Apateon being a fossil fish, he has sent to Agassiz a drawing with a descrip- 

 tion of it." 



Three years later, better preserved and more instructive specimens of the 

 problematical fossil were obtained by Professor von Dechen from the 

 Bavarian coal-fields, and were submitted to the examination of Professor 

 Goldfuss, of Bonn. The latter palaeontologist published a 4to memoir on 

 them, with good figures, referring them to a Saurian genus which he calls 

 Archegosaurus, or ' primeval lizard,' deeming it to be a transitional type be- 

 tween the fish-like Batrachia and the Lizards and Crocodiles %. 



The estimable author, on the occasion of publishing the above memoir, 

 transmitted to the Reporter excellent casts of the originals therein described 

 and figured. These casts were presented to the Museum of the Royal College 

 of Surgeons, London, and were described by me in the ' Catalogue of the 

 Fossil Reptiles' in that Museum (4to, 1854). The conclusions which I then 

 formed as to the position and affinities of the Archegosaurus in the Reptilian 

 class are published in that Catalogue, and were communicated to and dis- 

 cussed at the Geological Society of London (see the ' Quarterly Journal of 

 the Geological Society,' vol. iv. 1848). 



One of the specimens appeared to present evidence of persistent branchial 

 arches. The osseous structure of the skull, especially of the orbits, through 

 the completed zygomatic arches, indicated an affinity to the Labyrintho- 

 donts ; but the vertebra? and numerous very short ribs, with the evidence of 

 stunted swimming limbs, impressed the Reporter with the conviction of the 

 near alliance of the Archegosaurus with the Proteus and other perennibran- 

 chiale reptiles. 



This conclusion of the affinity of Archegosaurus to existing types of the 

 Reptilian class is confirmed by the subsequently discovered specimens, 

 described and figured by M. von Meyer in his ' Pakeontographica' (Bd. vi. 

 Heft 2. 1857), more especially by his discovery of the embryonal condition 

 of the vertebral column §, i. e. of the persistence of the notochord, and the 

 restriction of ossification to the arches and peripheral vertebral elements. 



In this structure, the old carboniferous Reptile resembled the existing 

 Lepidosiren, and thus affords further ground for regarding that remarkable 

 existing animal as one which obliterates the line of demarcation between the 

 Fishes and the Reptiles. 



Coincident with this non-ossified state of the basis of the vertebral bodies 

 of the trunk is the absence of the ossified occipital condyles, which condyles 

 characterize the skull in better developed Batrachia. The fore part of the 

 notochord has extended, as in Lepidosiren || , into the basi-sphenoid region, 



* Leonhard und Bronn, Neues Jahrbuch fiir Mineralogie, 1844, p. 336. 



t " Ob das — Apateon, pedestris — ein Salamander-artiges Geschopf war, ist keineswegs 

 ausgemacht." 



% " ' Archegosaurus,' Fossile Saurier aus dem Steinkolilengebirge die den Uebergang der 

 Ichtbyoden zu den Lacerten und Krokodilen bilden," ' Beitrage zur vorweltlichen Fauna 

 des Steinkohlengebirges ' (4to, 1847), p. 3. 



§ 'Reptilien aus der Steinkobleii-Formation in Deutschland,' Sechster Band, p. 61, 



|| Linn. Trans., vol. xviii. p. 333, pi. 24, fig. 2. 



