OSTODOLEPIS BREVISPINATUS, A NEW REPTILE 305 
The surface showing these scutes, as exposed on each side, is 
about an inch and a quarter in width, and must have been originally 
at least a half-inch wider. The scutes continue quite to the verte- 
brae, ascending a short distance on their sides, and over the ends 
of the posteriorly directed ribs. It would seem very probable 
that, after decomposition of the body had begun, the skin bearing 
these scutes had slipped down from the ribs and vertebrae till 
it came nearly in contact on the two sides. No trace of the scutes, 
however, was found in the matrix over the arches of the vertebrae. 
Fic. 2.—Ostodole pis brevispinatus. Scutes of right side. Enlarged. 
Whether or not these scutes originally covered the whole of the 
body can not be determined in this specimen, though it is quite 
evident that they covered the whole under surface of the abdomen 
as high up as the vertebrae, in the living animal. The vertebrae 
are evidently from the posterior dorsal region. Such bony scutes, 
whether they be ventral only or not, are wholly unlike anything 
that has hitherto been observed among the Permocarboniferous 
reptiles of America, and very unlike the slender ventral ribs which 
have been observed in other genera, such as Labidosaurus, Caplor- 
hinus, Poecilospondylus, Varanosaurus, Ophiacodon, etc. In all 
