ANCIENT SALAMANDERS 
95 
by Dr. Fritsch, have been very well preserved in those deposits 
of the Permian age, so that he was able to recognise in 
Fig. 17. — Part of skeleton of a Labyrinthodont, Archegosaurus Decheni, 
from tbe Permian, Saarbriicken. (After H. von Meyer.) The snout is incomplete. 
The three ventral plates are seen near the head. 
some cases the signs of the gills, by means of which, in early 
life, they breathed in water, like fishes. And so it is manifest 
that they did go through a series of metamorphoses. 
