E. M. Kindle — Origin of "Batrachioides the Antiquor ". 1 59 



they occupied ripple marks. But I found the same thing at Tadpole 

 City. Deep as the hole is, and sliglit as could be any aqueous 

 current there, I found that ripple raarks, of about the same width and 

 depth as those on the rocks, had been formed over a part of the 

 bottom, and of course the tadpoles chose the furrows rather than 

 the ridges for making tlieir holes. Another circumstance showed how 

 their holes came to be arranged in lines more or less, even where 

 there were no ripple marks. As the water became shallow, I found 

 that the tadpoles would collect in great numbers just along tlie surface 

 of the water, at its edge, and there of course would the work of 

 excavation be most thorough. But as the water was constantly 

 sinking, successive rows would thus be produced. In fact, until the 

 rains destroyed this city, I could not see but that all the phenomena 

 on the rocks were reproduced. And I know that these cavities were 

 forpoed by tadpoles, because I saw the animals at work in making 

 them. And had the spot been so situated that a gentle influx of water 

 as by a tide, or a freshet, should bring in mud to fill the cavities before 

 thej^ were erased by the rains, they might have been preserved 

 indefinitely ; and perchance sometime be converted to rock, such as 

 the South Hadley shale, or the Niagai-a sandstone." ^ 



Professor Hitchcock evidently considered the ' Niagara Sandstone ' 

 (Lockport Dolomite) impressions to have originated in a manner 

 analogous to those of the Connecticut Sandstone wliich he named 

 Batrachoides nidificans} He suggested tentatively that these 

 impressions represented 'mud nests' of Silurian batracliians and 

 proposed the name Batrachoides the antiquor in the following 

 passage : "And what is still more important, the facts would prove 

 the same thing in respect to a period so early as the time of the 

 Niagara Group of New York, which belongs to the lower part of 

 the Upper Silurian ; an epoch far earlier than any other in which 

 traces of batrachians have been discovered. Therefore I have called 

 the New York impressions Batrachoides the antiqtwr.'^ 



The writer recently published* a photograph of a specimen of 

 Hitchcock's B. antiquor, but postponed any discussion of the nature 

 of the impressions till the present occasion. 



Regarding Professor Silliman's suggestion that the impressions 

 represent the work of small fishes, it may be observed that very few 

 fishes are known in the Silurian anywhere, and that the only fish- 

 remains which have been discovered in the Silurian formations of this 

 region were obtained from beds 100 feet or more below the beds 

 under discussion. With respect to the batrachian origin of the 

 impressions, it may be noticed that thus far no direct evidence has 

 appeared that any representatives of the Amphibia were in existence 

 as early as Silurian time. Comparison of the accompanWng photograph 

 of the Lockport impressions, with Hitchcock's figure of the Connecticut 

 sandstone impressions called B. nidificans, strongly suggests tliat the 

 two have had a similar origin. There is no doubt either in the mind 

 of the writer that the dimpled surfaces on the Lockport Beds are the 

 product of the same agencies which now produce 'tadpole, nests'. 



^ Ichnohgy of Neto England, 1858, pp. 121-2. 

 - Folio U.S. Geol. Surv. No. 150, pi. xxv. 



