Reptilia

The only other class remaining to be noticed in this paper is the Reptilia, remains of which have only been identified as such during the last few years. One specimen from the Carluke coal field, Parabatrachus Colei, described as a reptile by Professor Owen in 1853, has now been discovered by Dr. Young to have been founded upon a small upper jaw, probably of the fish Megalichthys Hibberti. So far as yet discovered, all the reptilian remains in our coal field occur in connection with the Airdrie and Palace Craig blackband ironstones, which are evidently of fresh-water origin, as indicated by the fish and other remains found in these beds. No reptilian remains have yet been detected below these ironstones, or in any of the fresh-water strata that lie below, and alternate with, the marine limestone series. Their range, so far as known, is confined to the higher beds of the upper coal measures within certain limited areas in the Lanarkshire basin.1 As the discovery of reptiles in our coal field is of such recent date, a closer investigation of the various fish-bearing beds may lead to their detection in other strata; for the carnivorous habits of the carboniferous reptilia would probably lead them to frequent the same waters as those in which the fishes lived. Their remains would thus become mingled together in the same stratum after death. Such being the case, and with the bodies of fish and reptiles broken up into fragments in the beds, we can This 250-word extract was created in the absence of an abstract