PROTOROSAURIA 



133 



A few years ago the writer described a very slender, lizard-like 

 reptile about two feet in length from the Permian of Texas under 

 the name Araeoscelis, so named because of its slender legs. The 

 structure of both the skull and the skeleton of this reptile is now 

 quite satisfactorily known, so well known indeed that the accom- 

 panying restoration (Fig. 62) has little that is conjectural about 



Fig. 62. — Life restoration of Araeoscelis; about one-fourth life size 



it, at least so far as the form is concerned. The skull has a single, 

 upper temporal opening, quite like that of lizards, but the quadrate 

 is not loose below. And this is really what we should expect in 

 the ancestral lizards; and everything else of the skeleton, except 

 perhaps one character, is what would be expected. That one 

 character is the elongation of the cervical vertebrae, which are 



