May 7, 1897.] 



SCIENCE. 



711 



geographical distribution of the Amphibia, 

 which were published by the Smithsonian 

 Institution. In 1875 he prepared a ' Check 

 List of the ISTorth American Batrachia and 

 Eeptilia' for the U. S. National Museum; 

 this was followed by an essay ' On the Zo- 

 ological Position of Texas' (1880). Soon 

 afterwards, at the request of Spencer F. 

 Baird, he began the preparation of a general 

 work upon the Batrachia ; this was facili- 

 tated by a manuscript prepared for a work 

 of the same character both by Baird and 

 Girard, but was not completed until 1889. 

 As a volume of 523 pages and numerous 

 plates this work,* while showing many signs 

 of haste and subject to considerable changes 

 in the larger systematic divisions, fortu- 

 nately remains as a monument of the im- 

 mense range of knowledge and observation 

 of its author upon the structure and habits 

 of the living representatives of this group. 

 It must always be a matter of regret that 

 he could not have published his final views 

 upon the extinct forms. One of his most 

 most important generalizations from the 

 latter, contained in a short memoir, ' The 

 Intercentrum of the Terrestrial Vertebrata' 

 (1881), is that the vertebrae of living am- 

 phibia are composed of intercentra and are, 

 therefore, not homologous with the true 

 centra (pleurocentra) of reptiles, birds and 

 mammals. 



REPTILES. 



We have already traced Cope's initial 

 work upon the Reptilia. As in other 

 groups, his researches rapidly branched out 

 in many directions, first his treatment of 

 the reptiles of the Bridger and other fresh- 

 water Tertiary lakes in connection with the 

 mammalain fauna; second, the continuation 

 of his systematic description of the Kansas 

 Cretaceous fauna; third, the brief papers 

 upon the herbivorous Dinosaurs of the 

 Dakota (1877 and 1878) and the horned 



*'The Batrachia o£ North America.' Bull. No. 

 34, XJ. S. Nat. Museum. 



Dinosaurs (Monoclonius) of the Laramie for- 

 mations ; fourth, the numerous papers upon 

 the Eeptilia of the Triassic and especially of 

 the Permian. The latter must be con- 

 sidered the most important and unique in 

 their infiuence upon paleontology. In 

 1875 he first announced the discovery of 

 reptiles in the Permian, and in 1877 he re- 

 poi-ted the first primitive Crocodilia (Belo- 

 don) and Dinosauria ( Clepsysaurus and 

 Zatomus in the Triassic of North Carolina. 



The detailed sequence of this reptilian 

 work is clearly stated by Professor Baur : 

 "Already in 1864 he published a paper on 

 the characters of the higher groups of the 

 Squamata.* Two years later he made his 

 first remarks about the Dinosaur Lcelaps,f 

 and in 1867 he compared the carnivorous 

 Dinosaurs with the birds; | this he did be- 

 fore Huxley's paper upon the same subject 

 appeared. § 



In 1870 he read an important paper be- 

 fore the American Association ' On the 

 homologies of some of the Cranial Bones of 

 the Eeptilia and the systematic arrange- 

 ment of the class.' || He discussed the fol- 

 lowing topics. : 1 . Homologies and Compo- 

 sition of the cranial arches. 2. The cra- 

 nium of the Ichthyosauria. 3. The cranium 

 of the Anomodontia. 4. The homologies of 

 the opisthotic. 5. The squamosal bone. 6. 

 The columella (epipterygoid.) 7. The sys- 

 tematic arrangement of the Eeptilia. 8. 

 Critical remarks on the system. 9. The 

 Ehyncocephalia and supposed Lacertilia 

 of the Trias and Permian. 10. Strati- 

 graphic relation of the orders of Eeptilia. 



His classification is this : 



A. Extremities beyond proximal segment 

 not difiierentiated as to form. 



I. Iclithyopterygia : Order Ichthyopterygia. 



*Proc. Acad. Phila., 1864, p. 224. 



-f Laslaps aquilunguh, Cope. Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci., 

 Phila., July, 1886, p. 275-279. 



t Ibid., 1867, p. 234-235. 



I Popular Science Review, 1868, p. 237-247. 



II Proc. Assoc. Adv. Sci., XIX., p. 194-247. 



