126 
ZOOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 
to indicate such an affinity of the Caecilians to the more highly 
organized Reptilia, that they ought to be placed as an inter- 
mediate group between the Ophidians and the Batrachians. 
Figures of the sexual organs of male and female are added. — 
Rept. Brit. Ind. p. 442. 
Prof. Peters has received a young specimen of Epicrium glu~ 
tmosurrif 4^ inches long, in which the foramina of the gills were 
still open; it was found near Malacca, in the water. The 
openings, twQ on each side, are of equal length, whilst the an- 
terior was one-half shorter than the posterior in the specimen 
described by Muller. They are situated on the upper margin 
of the yellow band, and not in its middle. Distinct gills are 
not present ; eyes more distinct than in the adult, and there is 
an impression in front of each eye. The posterior extremity of 
the body is compressed, and surrounded with a vertical fin-like 
expansion of the skin, which commences at a distance of 
from the extremity of the body. — Monatsber. Acad. Wiss. Berl. 
1864, p. 303. 
BATRACHIA. 
Prof. J. D. Dana (Amer. Journ. Sc. and Arts, 1864, p. 184) 
discusses the question whether Amphibians (Batrachians) should 
be made the inferior division of the class of Reptiles, or whether 
they should be separated as an independent class. Its solution 
depends much upon the other question, whether greater weight 
is to be attached to the characters of species in their finished or 
adult state, or to the special series of changes through which 
the adult characteristics are reached. The author refers to the 
fact that, as regards the subkingdoms in animal life, embryology, 
in the hands of the best embryologists, has only sustained what 
Cuvier had derived from the study of the adult animals them- 
selves; and as to the subordinate divisions under the sub- 
kingdoms there is not only great diversity in the different 
embryological systems, but violations of natural affinities in all. 
Therefore, in a question of the relations of Amphibians to ordi- 
nary reptiles, it is safer to be guided by the adult animals than 
by their eggs and young. But in the adult state the species 
are reptiles in all essential structural characters. 
This view, viz. that Amphibians form a distinct group in 
the class of Reptiles, is strengthened by the analogy drawn from 
other classes of Vertebrates; the Mammals have their inferior 
subdivision — the ^^Ootocoids^^ or semiovoviviparous species (Mar- 
supialia and Monotremata) ; the Birds have their inferior subdi- 
vision — the Erpetoids (Archaeopteryx) ; and between ordi- 
nary Reptiles and Fishes, there are the Amphibians, forming a 
similar hypotypic subdivision of Reptiles. 
