542 Mr. Owen on species of 



palatal vomerine bones and teeth, and the other osteological characters already 

 detailed, must still be deemed decisive of their essentially Batrachian nature. 



If the evidence which I have been enabled to adduce in the present paper be 

 compared with that previously recorded relative to fossils of the Batrachian family, 

 the additions to this department of Palaeontology will be found as follows : — 



With the exception of the posterior fragment of the skull, on which Professor 

 Jaeger's Salamandro'ides giganteus is founded, no Batrachian fossil had been detected 

 anterior to the miocene tertiary period. The characters of Prof. Jaeger's fossil in- 

 duced him to regard it as closely allied to the gigantic Newt or Salamander, — the 

 Homo diluvii testis of Scheuchzer. It is placed between that fossil, which is the 

 Salamandra gigantea of Herm. V. Meyer, and the Triton Noachichus of Goldfuss, in 

 the ' Palaeologica' of the former author. But the double condyle of the Sala- 

 mandro'ides is a character also presented by the Caciliee, which some naturalists 

 still class with the Ophidian reptiles. In the Catalogue of Fossil Batrachians* 

 published by Dr. Tschudi, the Salamandro'ides of Jaeger is omitted : he com- 

 mences his list by the statement, that, in epochs anterior to the Molasse, there is 

 not, with certainty, known to be any trace of the fossil remains of Batrachiaf. 

 M. Tschudi, with many other continental palaeontologists, although admitting the 

 identity of the Salamandro'ides and Mast o dons aurus, place both fossils in the Sau- 

 rian group. 



The present researches afford additional evidence of the Batrachian character of 

 the Salamandro'ides of the Alaunschiefer of the German Keuper ; and they show 

 that it is not merely a Batrachian, like the Salamander, but is a member of a peculiar 

 family of Sauroid Batrachia, the more important characters of which were before 

 unknown. It has now been demonstrated that this family, the species of which 

 characterize and are peculiar to the new red sandstones, had a dental system 

 differing from all other Batrachia in the inequality of size of the front and back 

 teeth, the former being developed into great laniariform tusks ; and that the teeth 

 differ from those of all other animals in their peculiarly complex labyrinthine struc- 

 ture, whence the name of the family ; which, at present, I use generically. The 

 extinct Labyrinthodonts deviated from the Salamanders and other Batrachia in the 

 Crocodilian development and sculpturing of the external and superior bones of the 

 cranium, and in the structure of the pelvis, in which also they approximated to the 

 Crocodiles : and one species certainly, and the others probably, receded from the 

 Batrachia, in the same direction, in having dermal osseous plates. 



* In the Memoires de la Societe des Sciences Naturelles de Neuchatel, torn. ii. ^to. 1839. 

 t " Aus den der Molasse vorausgehenden Epochen, lassen sie mit Gewissheit keine spuren fossiler 

 Ueberreste von Batrachiern nachweisen." — p 19. 



