400 



D. M. S. Watson & G. Hickling— 



also indicates a very advanced type, from the loss of the intercentra 

 between the lumbar vertebrae which are preserved. 



The indications of these three reptiles as to the age of the Cuttie's 

 Hillock Beds is therefore very clear and consistent, viz. that they are 

 slightly younger than the Upper Permian Pariasaurian beds of Russia 

 or the Cisticephalus zone of South Africa ; being thus at the extreme 

 top of the Permian or about the Permo-Triassic boundary. A feature 

 of great general interest is that by their occurrence in these rocks 

 these three reptiles are shown to be dry-land or even desert animals. 



The Cummingstone Beds have still only yielded footprints. Some 

 time ago one of us showed that these impressions belong to the same 

 types as those at Mansfield, Dumfries, Penrith, and Exeter, two 

 forms being common to Mansfield and Cummingstone [2, 3]. 

 A further examination of the material in the Elgin Museum, and of 

 numerous imperfect tracks in the Cummingstone quarries, completely 



Fig. 1. — Chelichnus sp. X |. This footprint agrees exactly in 

 form with those figured (but not named) by Huxley as the smaller 

 impressions from Cummingstone (Huxley, The Grocodilia of the 

 Elgin Sandstones : Mem. Geol. Surv., Monograph iii, 1877, 

 pi. XV, figs. 1-4, pi. xvi). It differs in being twice as large. The 

 photograph shows two associated natural casts in relief. The 

 upper one represents a deep impression, showing the characteristic 

 crescentic mound of sand in the rear. The lower one is a lighter 

 impression, without the mound, but showing the claw markings 

 well. This type of footprint is much the most common 

 throughout the Upper Permian of Britain. Locality : 300 yards 

 W.N.W. of ' Elginia' Quarry, Cuttie's Hillock, Elgin. 



confirms this identification. The occurrence of the Mansfield tracks 

 in the Magnesian Limestone definitely fixes their age as Upper 

 Permian (Zechstein) [8], a determination supported by the widely 

 distinct character of the vertebrate tracks known from the Lower 

 Permian (Rothliegende) of Thuringia [7] and Hampstead [1]. The 

 Cummingstone Beds must, therefore, be of nearly the same age as the 

 Cuttie's Hillock Elginia deposits. That such is actually the case is 

 conclusively shown by our fortunate discovery of one of the typical 

 Cummingstone footprints in a quarry distant only 300 yards W.N.W. 

 from the Cuttie's Hillock reptile quarry (see Fig. 1). The evidence 



