126 ON SOME AMPHIBIAN AND REPTILIAN REMAINS 
element, as in the Crocodile—a structure of which I see no trace in 
the fossil under consideration. 
The large bony plates under the throat suggest a comparison with 
the similarly proportioned bony plates which occupy a like position 
in so many.of the better-known Labyrinthodonts, such as Mastodon- 
saurius, Archegosaurus, &c. Of these plates, however, there are only 
three, a median (rhomboidal), and two antero-lateral (triangular and 
bent up at the sides); while the present fossil seems to exhibit the 
remains of four plates, in two pairs, all of which have the form of 
triangles with their bases inwards. I am inclined to think that 
these parts are, in fact, the remains of a hyoidean system, possibly 
indicating a long persistence of the branchial apparatus. 
The teeth, in their even size, their very large pulp-cavities, and 
the apparent absence of folds of their dentine, are not much like 
those of the typical Labyrinthodonts ; but it must not be forgotten 
that our own Red Sandstone series? contain a Labyrinthodont (the 
_so-called Labyrinthodon Buckland?) which is a totally distinct generic 
form? from any of the described Labyrinthodonts, and has close-set, 
conical, thin-walled teeth, so anchylosed with the upper jaw as to 
appear continuous with it. 
But the Labyrinthodont remains to which the African skull pre- 
sents the closest resemblance are the Brachyops laticeps of Central 
India, and the undescribed cranium of an animal (from Australia) 
in the British Museum, very closely allied to Brachyops. 
Brachyops laticeps has been already so fully described by Professor 
Owen,‘ that I need merely refer to his paper and to the figures 
accompanying it: by studying these any person may convince him- 
self of the general resemblance between the Indian and the African 
fossil, and, at the same time, of the clear differences which separate 
them generically. 
The precise locality whence the Australian skull was obtained is 
unknown; and I should have remained ignorant of its existence 
except for the kindness of my friends Mr. Waterhouse and Mr. 
1 Since this paper was read, I have published an account of the structure of the Labyrintho- 
dont jaw to which reference is made, in Mr. Howell’s ‘“‘ Memoir on the Warwickshire Coal- 
field” + Memoirs of the Geological Survey, 1859. 
’ T learn from Professor Ramsay that the stratum in which Dasyceps Buchklandi occurs is 
of Permian, not of Triassic age. 
3 TI therefore propose to change its name into Dasyceps Bucklandi, the generic appellation 
alluding to the singularly rough and prickly surface of the cranial bones, like that of some 
recent Lratrachta. (See Mr. Howell’s Memoir cited above, in which the cranium of 
Dasyceps is described and figured.) 
+ Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. x. p. 4733 and vol. xi. p. 37. 
