1854.] OWEN SKULL OF THE BAPHETES PLANICEPS. 9 



remains of large fishes in a coal-seam, I forwarded to the Geological 

 Society only the upper and more entire part of the specimen, retaining 

 the remainder in my own cabinet. Since, however, the specimen 

 has proved to be of so much greater interest than I had anticipated, 

 I now beg leave to present to the Society the remaining portions, in 

 the hope that they may enable Prof. Owen more fully to make out 

 the character and affinities of the animal to which they belonged. 



I shall also take the earliest opportunity to examine such portions 

 of the " holeing-stone " as may now be exposed at the mines, in the 

 hope that I may be rewarded by further discoveries. I may remark, 

 however, that I have at various times examined considerable quantities 

 of this material, without finding any fossils except the remains of 

 small fishes already mentioned ; nor am I aware that other remains 

 of large animals have beea discovered in it, with the exception of a 

 smooth and nearly cylindrical hollow bone, apparently a part of a 

 large spine*, now, I believe, in the collection of Henry Poole, Esq.f 



Additional Remarks on the Skull of the Baphetes planiceps, Ow. 

 By Professor Owen, F.R.S., F.G.S. 



Since the communication of the notice of the portion of cranium of 

 the Labyrinthodont Reptile above-named (Quarterly Journal of the 

 Geol. Soc. May 1854), I have been favoured with the view of 

 some other fragments of the same cranium, including parts of the 

 interior or under-surface, with several teeth buried in the coal-matrix, 

 and exposed at the fractured surfaces. 



In the ordinary Labyrinthodont Reptiles of the European Trias, 

 one or two teeth at the fore-part of the jaws have the form and pro- 

 portions of large canines, the rest are smaller and more slender 

 pointed teeth. 



One of the present fragments includes the fore-part of the right 

 maxillary and premaxillary bones, and shows a single large laniariform 

 tooth descending from the fore-part of the maxillary into the substance 

 of the subjacent matrix : in front of the tooth is one of the smaller, 

 pointed, serial teeth : of which teeth other fragments show other 

 examples, the base of the teeth being anchylosed to shallow sockets 

 in the bone. 



So much, therefore, of the dental system of the Baphetes, as is 

 here exhibited, accords in the general characters of shape and 

 relative size, of disposition and mode of fixation to the jaw, with the 

 dentition of the Labyrinthodonts. 



* This bone was exhibited at the Meeting of the British Association at Liver- 

 pool, when it was regarded as probably belonging to a very large fish. Since the 

 reading of this paper Mr. Dawson has sent word that on further search he has 

 met with a fragment of a spine like that found by Mr. Poole, and numerous scales 

 of apparentlv large ganoid fishes in the rubbish-heap of the coal-seam referred to. 

 —Ed. Q. J.'G. S. 



t Late of the Albion Mines ; now of Alvaston, Derbyshire. 



