A Contribution to a Monograph of the Extinct Amphibia of North America. New Forms from the Carboniferous

In the course of an extended investigation of the extinct Amphibia of North America the writer has studied several forms from the Carboniferous which cannot be referred to any known species and they are here described as new. He has, so far, studied thirty-five species of the Carboniferous Amphibia of North America, all of which, with one or two exceptions, belong to the Branchiosauria and Microsauria. The Branchiosauria are represented by a single species. Of the Microsauria there has been an abundance of material available, thanks to the kind offices of Dr. Bashford Dean and Dr. Louis Hussakof of the American Museum, who very generously gave the writer the privilege of examining nearly a hundred of the specimens studied by Cope. There are already prepared some two hundred pages of manuscript and nearly sixty drawings toward the completion of a monograph of the extinct Amphibia of North America, but as the publication of this must be deferred until the remainder of the known North American and the European species have been studied, it is thought advisable to describe the following forms in advance, the more detailed treatment of the described forms being held for the monograph. The extinct Amphibia of the North American Paleozoic present a variety of forms, of very diverse organization. The forms known range from very small creatures like Micrerpeton caudatum, less than two inches in length, to large forms like Eryops megacephalus Cope from the Permian of Texas, which probably attained a length of eight or ten feet. A rather interesting parallel can be drawn between the Paleozoic Amphibia and the reptiles of today. The snakes are represented in the Paleozoic by the limbless, snake-like Amphibia, such as Ptyonius, Dolichosoma, Ophiderpeton and Molgophis of North