10 AIR-BREATHERS OF THE COAL PERIOD. 



torted in the most remaikable manner. In the bones, in short, as 

 in the plants of the coal, the flattened specimen must not be ac- 

 cepted as representing the original form. The bone represented 

 in Fig. 12, for example, must have been strong, and nearly cylin- 

 drical in its middle portion, and much curved, but it has given 

 way to pressure, and has as it were been faulted along certain 

 lines, so as to lose almost entirely its original relief. The sec- 

 tional view in Fig. 13, represents some of these faults, with the 

 present profile of the bone, its original outline being represented 

 by the dotted line. The title of the present species to the speci- 

 fic nwoaQ planiceps, is also in part dependent on this cause. No 

 doubt its head, like that of other batraebians, was somewhat flat, 

 but this has been much increased by pressure ; in so much that 

 the fragments of the specimen show that the palate is almost 

 brought into contact with the roof of the skull, and that scarcely a 

 quarter of an inch is left in some places for the depth of the great 

 orbits. The interior of the skull must have been filled with soft 

 slime, and this has been compressed into a hard stone. In like 

 manner, I shall have occasion to show, in reference to other rep- 

 tiles of the coal, that their bones have been much altered in form, 

 so that limb bones, which, when buried in a nearly erect position, 

 show broad and flat articulating surfaces, have these compressed 

 into mere edges, when the specimens lie horizontally, and that hol- 

 low bones have been fractured longitudinally, and pressed almost 

 perfectly flat. Anatomists may be very easily misled by such ap- 

 pearances, and should carefully enquire as to the possibility 

 of their occurrence, before deducing inferences from the forms of 

 bones. 



Of the general form and dimensions of Baphetes, the facts at 

 present known, do not enable us to say much. Its formidable 

 teeth and strong maxillary bones show that it must have devoured 

 animals of considerable size, probably the fishes whose remains 

 are found with it, or the smaller reptiles of the coal. It must in 

 short have been crocodilian, rather than frog-like, in its mode of 

 life ; but whether, like the labyrinthodonts, it had strong limbs and 

 a short body, or like the crocodiles, an elongated form and a power- 

 ful natatory tail, the remains do not decide. One of the limbs, or 

 a vertebra of the tail would settle this question, but neither have 

 as yet been found. That there were large animals of the laby- 

 rinthodontal form in the coal period, is proved by the footprints 

 discovered by Dr. King in Pennsylvania, which may have been 



