XXll LIFE AND WORKS OF COPE. 



Classification of the Reptilia by Characters op the 

 Feet and Cranial Arches. 



We have already traced Cope's initial work upon the 

 Reptilia. As in other groups, his researches rapidly- 

 branched out in many directions, first, his treatment of the 

 reptiles of the Bridger and other fresh-water Tertiary lakes 

 in connection with the mammalian fauna ; second, the con- 

 tinuation of his systematic description of the Kansas Creta- 

 ceous fauna ; third, his brief papers upon the herbivorous 

 Dinosaurs of the Dakota (1877 and 1878) and the horned 

 Dinosaurs (Monoclonius) of the Laramie formations ; fourth, 

 his numerous papers upon the Reptilia of the Triassic and 

 especially of the Permian. 



The latter discoveries must be considered the most im- 

 portant and unique in their influence upon paleontology. 

 In 1875 he first announced the existence of reptiles in the 

 American Permian, and in 1877 he reported the first primi- 

 tive Crocodilia (Belodon) and Dinosauri {Clepsysaurus and 

 Zatomus) in the Triassic of North Carolina. 



The detailed sequence of this reptilian work is clearly 

 stated by Professor Baur. Already in 1864 he published 

 a paper on the characters of the higher groups of the SqvM- 

 mata* a group proposed by Oppel to include the lizards 

 and snakes. Two years later he made his first remarks 

 about the Dinosaur Lselaps,f and in 1867 he compared 

 the carnivorous Dinosaurs with the birds. J 



" Prof. Cope gave an account of the extinct reptiles which ap- 

 proached the birds. He said that this approximation appeared to 

 be at two points. The first by the Pterosauria, to which the modi- 

 fied bird Archceopteryx presented points of affinity. The second, 

 and one not less striking, is by the Dinosauria of the orders Oonio- 



» Proo. Acad. Phila., 1864, p. 224. 



t IjCelaps aquilunguis. Cope. Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci., Phila., July, 1866, pp. 275- 

 279. 



t Ibid., 1867, pp. 234-235. 



