6 F. STOLTCZKA, ON OXYGLOSSUS PUSILLUS 



small size, as has been already noticed by Prof. Owen. The very large 

 number of specimens found together shews sufficiently that Oxyglossns 

 pusillus must have been living gregariously in a swamp, and was really 

 a very small species of frogs, as both the recent Oxyglossus decidedly are. 

 The latter are likewise peculiar insular forms, but whether the suggestion 

 regarding the habits of the fossil Oxyglossus coincides with those of the 

 recent species, I am unfortunately not in a position to state, for nothing 

 appears to have been recorded of the habits of the two living species of 

 Oxyglossus. Of the largest specimen of Oxyglossus Imvis which I 

 observed, the measurements are given above ; it seems hardly to attain 

 the size of 0. lima, taking Giinther^s measurement as the mean. 



I may notice that the recent species of Ixidus, Dum. and Bibr., are 

 also characterized by the want of vomerine teeth, but the proportions of 

 the Hmbs and the mode of occurrence do not make it in the least probable 

 that our fossil belonged to the group of tree-frogs. Somewhat similar 

 objections regarding the habitat also apply to the genus Dicroglosstis, 

 Giinther, which is based upon a Hymalayan species, also without vomerine 

 teeth. The fore and hind extremities in the only known species, Dierog. 

 Adolfi, appear in proportion to the body longer (see Giinther^s Indian 

 Reptiles, p. 402), than they are in either of the known species of Oxyglossus. 



Associated with Oxyglossus pusillus, which occurs in a black or 

 brownish sandy shale (the former, undoubtedly, very highly impregnated 

 with organic matter) were found small specimens of wood, and frag- 

 mentary impressions of long narrow leaves of a plant which was 

 probably a species of Ty^pha, usually growing in swamps. Besides these 

 very numerous impressions of Cypridince. were observed, but they are 

 so indistinct as not even to admit of a generic determination. Not a trace 

 of a fish, not even a single scale, has, remarkably enough, been noticed. 



The manner in which the entire skeletons of Oxygl. pusillus are 

 usually found shews that most of the specimens must have met with a 

 quick death, and that they were buried shortly afterwards in the muddy 



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