Chap. XIII.] 
PERMIAN FISH AND" REPTILES." 
343 
recollect that, whilst few or no remains of true Lizards have been found in the 
subjacent formation (Carboniferous), the strata of this newer era contain the 
relics of Thecodont Saurians, which Owen refers to a higher order of Reptiles 
than any of the older fossils of this class, by showing that they had limbs as well 
organized as in the living Monitor*: the Proterosaurus, v. Meyer, and Rhopalodon, 
Fischer, were, according to him, Sauri which occasionally walked on dry land. 
Fossils (87). Permian Fish. 
Palasoniscus Frieslebeni, Agass. ; from the Kupfer-Schiefer of Mansfeld in Germany. 
Struck with the fact of the Permian deposits containing Saurians, Conybearef 
and Agassiz thought that the group ought to be placed at the base of the 
Secondary rocks, which mark the great era of Reptiles. But the discovery 
of Labyrinthodonts in the Carboniferous rocks of Europe and America has 
satisfied my colleagues and myself that this argument was insufficient, and that 
we were right in being guided by the general facies of the Mollusks and Plants, 
and in grouping the Permian (as Phillips had, indeed, previously grouped the 
Magnesian Limestone) with those antecedent deposits to which it is naturally 
attached by very many links. 
The Dasyceps Bucklandi (Labyrinthodon, Lloyd), from the neighbourhood of 
Kenilworth, was found in red sandstones once considered to be of Triassic age, 
but since assigned to the Permian period t 
Thus we learn that, in the oldest rocks (Upper Palaeozoic) in which 
they first appear, the Reptiles are as wonderful and elaborate in structure 
as the primeval Fishes which accompanied them, or as the Corals, Crinoids, 
Shells, and Crustacea which preceded them during the Silurian or Lower 
Palaeozoic epoch. 
* See ' Kussia-in-Europe,' vol. i. p. 213 ; and Pro- 
fessor Owen's description, p. 637, App. My friend 
the late Major Wangenheim von Qualen, to whom 
my associates and myself were much indebted for 
information respecting the structure of the Per- 
mian rocks of Orenburg, detected since our visit 
bones of another Reptile, which occurs, not, like 
the remains of the Ehopalodon (Fischer), in the 
sandstone and conglomerate, but in the limestone 
(Zechstein) of the formation. The preservation 
of the head of this animal has enabled M. Eich- 
wald to assign to it the name of Zygosaurus 
Lucius, and to compare it with the Crocodile. 
On referring M. Eichwald's description (Bull. 
Soc. Imp. Nat. Moscou, 1852, No. 4) to Professor 
Owen, that celebrated comparative anatomist thus 
writes to me : — " The characters which M. Eich- 
wald points out in his fossil as resembling those 
in the Crocodile also occur in the fossil skulls of 
the Labyrinthodont Reptiles ; and the observation 
upon the number and comparatively small size of 
the teeth in the Permian Reptile would lead to 
a suspicion that it may really belong to the Laby- 
rinthodont family. All doubt would be removed 
by an inspection of the occiput of M. Eichwald's 
fossil : if that part presented a single condyle for 
articulation with the neck- vertebrae, it would de- 
termine the accuracy of his view of its affinities ; 
but if the occiput showed a pair of condyles, it 
would prove the fossil to be a Sauroid Batra- 
chian." 
t My lamented friend, the late eminent Dean 
of Asaph, equally distinguished for the broad geo- 
logical views put forth in his ' Outlines of the 
Geology of England ' and for his anatomical illus- 
trations of Saurian Reptiles (see Trans. G-eol. Soe. 
vol. v. p. 559 ; and 2nd ser. vol. i. pp. 103 & 381). 
I See Ramsay on the Permian Breccia, Quart. 
J ourn. Geol. Soc. Lond. vol. xi. p. 198 ; and Hux- 
ley's Appendix to Howell's Geology of the War- 
wickshire Coal-fields, &c, Mem. Geol. Surv. 1859. 
