NOTES ON LOXOMMA AlLMAira"!. 47 



as those of a hitherto unknown Labyrinthodont, which he named 

 Macrosaurus polyspondylus. 



Mr. Barkas very kindly presented them to me in the summer 

 of 1877, after he had taken much trouble in removing part of the 

 shale in which the bones were imbedded. "When they came into 

 my hands they still required much care and minute work, ex- 

 tending over a whole month, to expose satisfactorily all their 

 parts, and the nine fragments were reduced to three by joining 

 those that fitted naturally together, and these three formed a 

 continuous series. 



They comprise a larger amount of the skeleton of Loxomma 

 than has yet been obtained, but it is much to be regretted that 

 the whole of the remains were not obtained, for we should then 

 have been able to ascertain with some degree of certainty the 

 dimensions of the different parts of the whole, probably adult, 

 animal. 



The three fragments when put in line measure fifty-six inches 

 in length, and at no part more than eight inches and a half in 

 breadth. Two of them are much bigger than the third, and are 

 respectively twenty-six and twenty -four inches long, whilst the 

 third is only six inches in length : in each case the organic re- 

 mains are of the same length as the slabs in which they are im- 

 bedded. 



The remains are mainly those of the vertebral column, includ- 

 ing the whole of the dorsal and lumbar, and part of the sacral 

 regions, if not the whole of the last, and part of the caudal ex- 

 tremity. The column lies crushed over slightly to its right side, 

 the spinous and the left transverse and articular processes appear- 

 ing at the left side in a long continuous series. The vertebrae, 

 though irregularly disposed, partially distorted, and even dislo- 

 cated, are, notwithstanding, found in their natural sequence 

 throughout. Their bodies, "mostly entire, are alternately large 

 and small, both being biconcave, the smaller representing the 

 intervertebral substances of the higher animals, and having the 

 heads of the ribs articulated to their sides. The bodies of the 

 larger vertebrae vary in length on their front from one quarter of 

 an inch to seven-eighths of an inch, are strongly convex from 



