NOTE ON HUMERI OF TASMANIAN 

 LABYRINTHODONTS. 



By W. H. Twelvetrees, F.G.S., axd W. F. Petterd, 

 C.M.Z.S. 



Last year we received from Dr. Hy. Woodward, Keeper 

 of the Geological Collections in the British Museum 

 (South Kensington) the replica of a cast in the British 

 Museum Collection which had been obtained from Dr. 

 Joseph Milligan, formerly of Hobart, and was labelled by 

 Professor Owen " Humerus of labyrinthodont reptile from 

 sandstone, probably carboniferous, Tasmania." Soon 

 after informing Mr. Alex. Morton, Curator of the Tas- 

 mania Museum, of this circumstance, that gentleman 

 brought to our notice and placed in our hands for examin- 

 ation a fossil bone (in two pieces), found in the sandstone 

 quarry, near Government House, in the Domain, Hobart, 

 and presented to the Museum, in 1856, hj Mr. Kay, 

 Director of Public Works. This bone, unnoticed for over 

 forty years, is labelled " Humerus of a labj'rinthodont 

 reptile .... has been examined by Professor Owen," 

 and on the reverse is written by one of the authorities at 

 the British Museum, " Try Eosaurus of Marsh." Both the 

 British and Tasmanian Museum specimens are left humeri,. 

 and unquestionably belong to the same genus, if not the 

 same species. 



Geo log lea I x>os it ion . 



The precise age of the sandstone beds in the Domain, 

 at Hobart, is not yet beyond question, but the evidence 

 available points to it being either Upper Permian or Lower 

 Trias. The Cascade, Knocklofty, and other sandstones of 

 presumably the same geological horizon have yielded 

 Yertebraria Australis and fish remains referred by Mr. R.- 

 M.Johnston and Mr. Alex. Morton to the genus " Acro- 

 lepis."* According to these authors, similar sandstones in 

 this part of Tasmania succeed the Upper Permo-Car- 

 boniferous marine strata with apparent conformability, 

 and are classed by Mr. Johnston in his latest tabular 

 scheme of Tasmanian formations as the lower sandstone 



* Trans. Roy. Soc, Tasmania, 1889, p. 102 ; 1890, p. 152. 



