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Fig. 521.

Scale one-sixth the original size.

Part of the trail of a (Chelonian?) quadruped from the Old Red Sandstone of Cummingstone, near Elgin, Morayshire.—Captain Brickenden.

Skeleton of a reptile, allied to the Batrachians, in the Old Red Sandstone of Morayshire.—Mr. Patrick Duff, author of a "Sketch of the Geology of Morayshire" (Elgin, 1842), obtained recently (October, 1851), from the rock above alluded to, the first example ever seen of the skeleton of a reptile in the Old Red Sandstone. He has kindly allowed me to give a figure of this fossil, of which Dr. Mantell has drawn up a detailed osteological account for publication in the "Journal of the Geological Society of London." The bones in this specimen have decomposed, but the natural position of almost all of them can be seen, and nearly perfect casts of their form taken from the hollow moulds which they have left. The matrix is a fine-grained, whitish sandstone, with a cement of carbonate of lime. The skeleton exhibits the general characters of the Lacertians, blended with peculiarities that are Batrachian. Hence Dr. Mantell infers that this reptile was either a freshwater Batrachian, resembling the Triton, or a small terrestrial Lizard. Slight indications are visible of very minute conical teeth. Captain Brickenden, who is well acquainted with the geology of that part of Scotland, informs me that this fossil was found in the Hill of Spynie, north of the town of Elgin, in a rock quarried for building, and the same in which the Chelonian foot-prints, alluded to in the last page, occur. The skeleton is about four and a half inches in length, but part of the tail is concealed in the rock. Dr. Mantell has proposed for it the generic name of Telerpeton, from τηλε, afar off, and ἑρπετον, a reptile; while the specific name Elginense commemorates the principal place near which it was obtained.

Eggs of Batrachians (?) in the Old Red Sandstone of Scotland.—At page 344. of this work I have given two figures (figs. 397 and 398.) of small groups of eggs, very common in the shales and sandstones of the "Old Red" of Kincardineshire, Forfarshire, and Fife. I threw out as a conjecture, that they might belong to gasteropodous mollusca, like those represented in fig. 399. p. 345.; but Dr. Mantell, some years ago, showed me a small bundle of the dried-up eggs of the common English frog (see fig. 524 a.), black and carbonaceous, and so identical in appearance with the fossils in question, that he suggested the probability of these last being of Batrachian origin. The plants by which they are often accompanied (fig. 398. p. 344.), I formerly supposed to be Fuci, but Mr. Bunbury tells me that their grass-like form agrees well with the idea of their being freshwater, and of the family Fluviales.

The absence of all shells, so far as our researches have yet gone, in the slates and sandstones of Scotland above alluded to, raises a presumption against their marine origin, and a still stronger one against the fossil eggs being those of Gasteropoda. It is well known that a single female of the Batrachian tribe ejects annually an astonishing quantity of spawn. Mr. Newport, author of many accurate researches into the metamorphoses of the Amphibia, having examined my fossils from Forfarshire, concurs in Dr. Mantell's opinion that the clusters of eggs (figs. 397. 398. p. 344.) may be those of frogs; while other larger ones, occurring singly or in pairs in the same slates, and often attached to a leaf, may be the ova of a gigantic Triton or Salamander. (See figs. 523, 524, 525.) I may observe that the subdivision of the Old Red Sandstone, in which these plants and ova occur (No. 4. of the section, fig. 62. p. 48.), is considerably lower in position than the rock in which the Telerpeton of Elgin is imbedded.