FAUNA— LOWER KEUPER SANDSTONE. 15 



Only two examples have been found, and these, though 

 fairly perfect in other respects, want the extremities of the 

 fore and hind limbs, so we have no means of recognising 

 their footprints. The Rhynchosauridse were very 

 generalised reptiles, Hyperodapedon being the most 

 specialised ; Sphenodon the least so, and probably for that 

 reason this form has survived and illustrates from another 

 point of view the remarks made by Professor Herdman 

 some time ago on the effect of high specialisation on the 

 Ammonites.* 



We will next consider the Anomodontia, essentially 

 a Permian and Triassic group, interesting from their being 

 directly intermediate in their skeletal characters between 

 the highest Labyrinthodontia and the lowest Mammals. 

 They are best known to us by examples from South Africa 

 and India, described by Owen, Seeley and others ; they 

 are also represented in Great Britain by several forms 

 allied to Dicynodon, found at Elgin, and finely worked 

 out and described and figured by Mr. E. T. Newton, 

 F.R.S., f who has included them in two new genera, 

 Gordonia and Geikia, named after that well-known 

 geologist, Rev. Dr. George Gordon, to whom we are 

 mainly indebted in the first instance for the Elgin fossils ; 

 and Sir A. Geikie, E.R.S., Director-General of the 

 Geological Survey. The principal bones known are those 

 of the skull, a striking feature of which is the great lateral 

 expansion of some of the bones, giving the head the 

 appearance of being much larger than it really is. The 

 brain space is remarkably small. The parietal crests 

 extend down the posterior portion of the skull, and passing 

 forwards form the temporal arch. 



There is a feature in Gordonia Traquari which will 



* Proc. Liverpool Geol. Soc, President's Address, vol. ix., p. 6. 

 f Some New Reptiles from the Elgin Sandstones, by E. T. Newton, 

 F.G.S., F.R.S., Phil. Trans. Royal Soc., vol. 184 (1893), B., p. 431. 



