276 AIR-BREATHERS OP THE COAL PERIOD. 



inches in diameter, they would indicate a gigantic aquatic reptile,, 

 furnished with a powerful swimming tail, and no doubt with appa- 

 ratus for the capture and destruction of its prey, comparable with 

 that of Ichthyosaurus. 



In a bed of hard calcareous sandstone, some distance below that 

 which afforded the animal just noticed, there occur great numbers 

 of teeth and scales, referable in part to large sauroid fishes, but 

 perhaps also in part to reptiles. One of these is a remarkable 

 tooth obtained by Sir W. E. Logan in 1843, and represented in 

 Fig. 47. It resembles externally the teeth of. Baphetes, but its- 

 structure is almost precisely that of the teeth of the Lepidosteus, 

 or bony pike of the St. Lawrence. Another tooth from the same 

 bed, and with a similarly fluted surface, has a more complex laby- 

 rinthic structure, as seen in Fig. 48, which however represents 

 only a small fragment. "With these occur large round thin scales 

 like those of Rhizodus, but also wrinkled bony plates resembling 

 that which I have attributed to Baphetes. From the hardness of 

 the rock it is difficult to extract perfect specimens of these re- 

 mains, and no bones other than teeth and dermal scales have 

 been found. 



Under this head may be noticed the coprolitic matter which 

 not infrequently occurs with the remains of reptiles, in the erect 

 trees of the Joggins, and to which reference has already been 

 made in previous sections. This fossil excrement is of a brown 

 or fawn colour, and consists in great part of carbonate of lime,, 

 indicating probably that shells of snails or other mullusks formed 

 a considerable part of the food of the smaller reptiles of the coal 

 swamps. Some portions of it are filled with small bones appa- 

 rently of Hyhnomus Wymani. Other examples contain abun- 

 dance of fragments of chitinous matter referable in part to Xylo- 

 oius Sigillarice, the millipede of the coal ; and in other instances 

 to insects. Of the latter kind of remains the most interesting is 

 an Eye, represented in Fig. 56. It must have belonged to an in- 

 sect of considerable size, and with highly complex eyes, probably 

 a neuropterous insect. As many as 250 facets are distinguishable 

 in the fragment preserved, and the whole number in each eye 

 may have amounted to 2000. In size and form the facets re- 

 semble those of the eye of a common Canadian dragon fly of the 

 genus Aeschna, but are a little smaller. In this and other copro- 

 lites, though abundance of minute chitinous fragments remain, no 

 others are sufficiently perfect to be recognized. In one coprolitic 



