88 
EXTINCT MONSTERS 
admit, but useful, because it partly serves to describe them. |||' 
Scientific men are said to be very fond of long Latin and Greek 
names, but such can hardly be avoided; and there is this to be ||i 
said for them — that the names they use are much more exact || 
than the popular ones by which plants and animals are com- 
monly known, and, moreover, they often convey a great deal of 
information in a brief manner. Row, the name given to the 
I’ 
creatures we are about to describe is Labyrinthodonts. . j 
It was Sir Eichard Owen who first accurately described the 
fossil amphibians, and they received this name from him. Let |li 
us see what the name means and how it applies. Sir Eichard w! 
Owen’s acquaintance with these remarkable forms of ancient life m 
began in the year 1840, when he first examined certain teeth from || 
the Xew Eed Sandstone of Coton End quarry, Warwickshire. « 
In external character these fragmentary teeth corresponded || 
with those which had been previously discovered in Germany ; I 
(in Wurtemberg) by Professor Jaeger, and which had been called i I 
' I 
by him Mastodonsaurus. This name was not a happy one, || 
because it suggested an association with an extinct elephant, || 
the Mastodon, with which this amphibian, it is hardly necessary || 
to say, had no connection, real or imaginary. Owen examined || 
the teeth of the fossils from Germany, as well as those from |l 
Warwickshire, and found that, when cut across into transverse || 
sections for the microscope, they revealed a very remarkable and || 
complicated structure ; the whole of the internal portion was 
i; 
seen to be made up of a complex series of foldings, forming a 
peculiar structure, suggesting a labyrinth — the external layer of 
cement belonging to the tooth converging in numerous folds 
towards the pulp-cavity. And so the name Labyrinthodonts ’rj 
reminds us that all, or nearly all, the fossil animals included f 
under the above general term possess teeth having this 
