68 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Jail. 19, 



which the practised eye of the Professor discerned to present more 

 the characters of a Reptile than of a Fish ; and, after a careful 

 scrutiny, I became satisfied that the Professor's surmise was correct, 

 and that the specimen in question presented closer marks of resem- 

 blance to the Archegosaurus^ than to any known species of fish 

 from the Carboniferous series. At Prof. M 'Coy's request, and with 

 the liberal pei'mission of Lord Enniskillen, I brought away the spe- 

 cimen for more detailed comparison with the skeletons of recent 

 Reptilia, and with the fossils and casts of extinct species, available 

 for the purpose, in the Metropolitan Collections ; and I now submit 

 to the Geological Society the specimen itself with the results of these 

 comparisons. 



Tbe specimen (PI. II. fig. 1) consists of the right half of the facial 

 part of the skull, with the short premaxillary (22), long maxillary (21), 

 and broad malar (26) and lacrymal (73), with part of the postfrontal (12) 

 and squamosal (27) bones, slightly dislocated and squeezed into the 

 shale, with their smooth inner surfaces exposed. A part of the shale 

 from which the bone has been removed shows the impressions of the 

 reticularly sculptured outer surface of the bones. The premaxillary 

 contained a few teeth, longer than those of the maxillary : of these 

 teeth one remains in situ and there is the impression of a second. 



The maxillary, of the alveolar border of which upwards of three 

 inches are preserved, contains about 30 teeth, of small and subequal 

 size ; implanted in sockets ; conical, pointed, very slightly recurved, 

 presenting, most of them, the oblique aperture of a cavity, on the 

 inner side of their base, which side is the one exposed to view, owing 

 to the position in which the skull is imbedded. The height of the 

 maxillary is greatest about one-fourth from the maxillo-premaxillary 

 suture ; thence it diminishes in height, at first rapidly, afterwards 

 gradually, terminating in a point far behind the orbit, as in the 

 Labyrinthodon-\ : the inner surface of the maxillary presents a 

 longitudinal ridge running parallel with the alveolar border, about 

 3 lines above it, for an extent equal to the middle third part of the 

 alveolar border, which ridge forms the partial wall of a smooth canal 

 or groove, answering to the air-passage leading from the nostril in 

 the Labyrinthodon. A portion of the anterior part of the left 

 maxillary bone lies obliquely and partially across the exposed inner 

 surface of the left maxillary. The portions of bones that seem best 

 to answer to the lacrymal and malar in the Archegosaurus and Laby- 

 rintliodon, are those which together constitute the inferior border of 

 the large orbit. The portions of the bones which best correspond 

 with the postfrontal and squamosal in the above-cited Batrachoid 

 reptiles, show by their breadth that the outer surface of the sub- 

 orbital and postorbital parts of the skull has been as completely 

 ossified, or encased in bone, as in these Reptiles. The indications 

 of the sculpturing of the outer surface of the cranial bones, afforded, 



* Beitrage zur vorweltlichen Fauna des Steinkohlengebirges, von Dr. Goldfuss, 

 4to, 1847. 



t Owen, Geol. Trans. 2nd Ser. vol. vi. pp. 503-543, 1841 ; and Burmeister, Die 

 Labyrinthodonten aus dem Bunten Sandstein von Bernburgt ; 4to, 1849. 



