NOTE ON THE GENUS HYLOPUS OF DAWSON. 
249 
an animal partly water-borne, prevents one from using this as the 
type of the genus ; we therefore fall back on the second species 
as the one which can be taken as a generic type. This species is 
H. Hardingi. 
The first reference we have to this fossil is in Lyell’s Elements 
of Geology (New York, 1866, p. 510), where the author says: 
Footprints of two reptiles of different sizes had previously been 
observed by Dr. Harding and Dr. Gesner on ripple-marked slabs 
of the lower coal-measures in Nova Scotia, evidently made by 
quadrupeds walking on the ancient beach, or out of the water, 
just as the recent Menopoma is sometimes observed to do.” 
The footprints are again referred to in Dawson’s Acadian 
Geology (London, 1868, p. 356), with figures). Here Sir Wil- 
liam says (p. 356) that Dr. Harding, of Windsor, when examin- 
ing a cargo of sandstone from Parrsboro, N. S., found on one 
of the slabs a very distinct series of footprints, each with four 
toes, and a trace of a fifth. Dr. Harding’s specimen is now in 
the museum of King’s College, Windsor. Its impressions are 
more distinct, but not very different otherwise from those found 
at Horton Bluff [H. 'Logani.] 
According to “ Airbreathers,” (p. 9, Explanation of Plates, 
Fig. 2), the figure of Hylopus Hardingi is from a rubbing taken 
by Professor How, of Windsor College, and was evidently taken 
from the cast of the fossil. Prof. How apparently failed to 
perceive and to indicate the impression of the sole, or “ heel,” 
and so the drawing appears to be taken from a digitate print, 
whereas the imprint shows plainly that the animal rested on the 
sole of the foot as well as on the toes, in walking. There is 
therefore no species of Hylopus in which the impression of the 
sole is entirely wanting, except that of H. Logani, whose peculiar 
impressions we have noted above. 
There is a marked advantage in the regularity as well as in 
the distinctness of the tracks of H. Hardingi to the observer who 
wishes to learn what the characteristics of the genus Hylopus are, 
for they show distinctly the sole of the foot, and so approach a 
type of footmark common in the Carboniferous system. 
Hylopus, therefore, was made by an animal which did not walk 
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