340 FOSSILS EEMAINS OF LABYRINTHODON. [Ch. XXII. 



conviction that the Cheirotherium and Lahyrinthodon are one and the 

 same. 



In order to show the manner in which one of these formidable Batra^ 

 chians may have impressed the mark of its feet upon the shore, Pro£ 

 Owen has attempted a restoration, of which a reduced copy is annexed 



Fig. 439. 







_ _— - 









W^ 



— a 







,_ . 



Kestored outline oi LatyHnthodon pachygnathus, Owen. 



The only bones of this species at present known are those of the head; 

 the pelvis, and j)art of the scapula, which are shown by stronger lines in 

 the above figure. There is reason for believing that the head was not 

 smooth externally, but protected by bony scutella. This character and 

 the presence of strong conical teeth implanted in sockets, together with 

 the elongated form of the head, induce many able anatomists, such as 

 Von Meyer and Mantell, to regard the Labyriuthodons as more allied to 

 crocodiles than to frogs. But the double occipital condyles, the position 

 of some of the teeth on the vomer and palatine bones, and other charac- 

 ters, are considered by Messrs. Jager and Owen to give them superior 

 claims to be classed as batrachians. That they occupy an intermediate 

 place is clear, but too little is yet known of the entire skeleton to enable 

 us to determine the exact amount of their aflSnity to one or other of the 

 above-named great divisions of reptiles. 



Triassic Mammifer [Microlestes antiquus, Plieninger). — In the year 

 1847, Professor Plieninger, of Stuttgart, published a description of two 

 fossil molar teeth, referred by him to a warm-blooded quadruped,^ which 

 he obtained from a bone-br(?>?cia in Wurtemberg occurring between the 

 lias and the keuper. As the announcement of so novel a fact has never 

 met with the attention it deserved, we are indebted to Dr. Jager, of Stutt- 

 gart, for having recently reminded us of it in his Memoir on the Fossil 

 Mammalia of Wiirtemberg.f 



Fig. 440 represents the tooth first found, taken from the plate pub- 

 lished in 184Y, by Professor Plieninger; and fig. 441 is a drawing of the 

 same executed from the original by Mr. Hermann Von Meyer, which he 

 has been kind enough to send me. Fig. 442 is a second and larger 

 molar, copied from ,Dr. Jager's plate Ixxi., fig. 15. 



* Wiirtembergisch. Naturwissen Jahreshefte, 3 Jahr. Stuttgart, 184*7. 

 f Nov. Act. Acad. Caesar. Leopold. Nat. Cur. 1850, p. 902. For figures, see 

 ibid, plate xxL figs. 14, 15, 16, 11. 



