FOSSIL REPTILES. 339" 



aquatic salamanders, namely, four toes, with one metacarpian 

 and two phalanges for each, except the third, which has three 

 phalanges. 



Some years after, the Baron, being in this metropolis, had 

 an opportunity of personally examining the specimen of Dr. 

 Ammann, in our Museum. 



The omoplates and humerus are the same as in that of 

 Scheuchzer, but the fore-arms and hands are wanting. The 

 thighs and legs are to be seen opposite the nineteenth ver- 

 tebra. In the living aquatic salamanders the position of the 

 pelvis varies much ; but in one species, triton cristatus, the 

 Baron has seen it suspended at the eighteenth vertebra, 

 which accords with the position of the posterior extremities in 

 this fossil. 



The bones of the legs are one half shorter than the femora, 

 and the tibia is very broad. Some remains of the pelvis and 

 of the toes are visible. 



Behind the pelvis are still sixteen vertebrae, and by the size 

 of their transverse processes, one may judge that there were 

 many more to come after them in the entire tail. 



In the head of this specimen, in the British Museum, are . 

 some teeth. Its form is exactly the same as that of the speci- 

 men at Harlem, and broader in proportion than in our living 

 salamanders. The great species of the Allegany Mountains 

 approaches it most in this character, and also resembles it in 

 the breadth of the pterygoid bones, and the prominence of its 

 occiput behind the lateral processes which bear the lower jaw. 



There are two bones placed on each side of the occiput, and 

 which are found in both specimens. M. Cuvier at first ima- 

 gined that they announced a considerable and permanent 

 branchial apparatus, and was, therefore, inclined to refer these 

 animals to the genus Proteus. But his present opinion, 

 founded on a more extended study of the hyoid bone, and its 

 pieces in the aquatic salamander, is, that the two bones in 

 question are the two pieces of the posterior cornet. The 



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