BATRACHIA. 319 



and Platemys are exemplified by many species in the eocene 

 deposits, both at Sheppy and Hordwell. In the pliocene 

 of (Eningen remains of a species of Chelydra have been 

 discovered ; this generic form is now confined to America. 

 Eemains of land-tortoises (Testudo, Brong.) indicate several 

 extinct species in the miocene and pliocene formations of 

 continental Enrope. Strata of like age in the Sewalik Hills 

 have revealed the carapace of a tortoise (Colossochelys atlas), 

 20 feet in length. The same locality has also afforded the 

 interesting evidence of a species of Emys (E. tectum, Gray) 

 having continued to exist from the (probably miocene) period 

 of the Sivatherium to the present day. 



Order XIII. — Batrachia. 



(Toads, Frogs, Neicts.) 



Char. — Vertebras biconcave (Siren), proccelian (Rana), or 

 opisthoccelian (Pipa) : pleurapophyses short, straight. 

 Two occipital condyles and two vomerine bones, in most 

 dentigerous : no scales or scutes. Larvae with gills, j n 

 most deciduous. 



It is only in tertiary and post-tertiary strata that extinct 

 species, referable to still existing genera or families of this 

 order, have been found. The reptiles with amphibian or 

 batrachian characters, of the carboniferous and triassic periods, 

 combined those characters with others which gave them dis- 

 tinctions of ordinal value ; they illustrated, indeed, rather a 

 retention of the more general cold-blooded vertebrate type, 

 with concomitant piscine and saurian features, than any near 

 affinity with the more specially modified naked reptiles to 

 which the name Batrachia is given in zoological catalogues of 

 existing species. While the ganoid type of fish prevailed the 

 Batrachia were ganoid, the soft-skinned Batrachia belong to 



