No mark of the tail or belly appears. The impressions are such as may have been made by animals similar to some of those to be described in the sequel. Shortly afterward, Dr. Harding, of Windsor, when examining a cargo of sandstone which had been landed at that place from Parrsboro', found on one of the slabs a very distinct series of footprints, each with four toes, and a trace of the fifth. Dr. Harding's specimen is now in the museum of King's College, Windsor. Its impressions are more distinct, but not very different otherwise from those above described, as found at Horton Bluff. The rocks at that place are probably of nearly the same age with those of Parrsboro'. I afterward examined the place from which this slab had been quarried, and satisfied myself that the beds are Carboniferous, and probably Lower Carboniferous. They were ripple-marked and sun-cracked, and I thought I could detect some footprints, though more obscure than those in Dr. Harding's slab. Similar footprints are also stated to have been found by Dr. Gesner, at Parrsboro'. All of these were from the lowest beds of the Carboniferous system. I have since observed several instances of such impressions at the Joggins, at Horton, and near Windsor, showing that they are by no means rare, and that reptilian animals existed in no inconsiderable numbers throughout the coal field of Nova Scotia, and from the beginning to the end of the Carboniferous period. Most of these, when well preserved, shew five toes both on the anterior and posterior limb. On comparing these earlier Carboniferous footprints with one another, it will be observed that they are of similar general character, and may have been made by one kind of animal, which must have had the fore and hind feet nearly of equal size, and a digitigrade mode of walking. Footprints of similar form are found in the coal formation, as well as others of much larger size. The latter are of two kinds. One of these shows short hind feet of digitigrade character and a long stride, in this resembling the smaller footprints of the Lower Carboniferous, which are remarkable for the length of limb which they indicate by the distance between the footprints. The other kind shows long hind feet, as if the whole heel were brought down to the ground in a plantigrade manner. These have also the outer toe separated from the others, and sometimes provided with a long claw. The fore foot is sometimes smaller than the hind foot, and differently formed.[126] In these respects they resemble the great Labyrinthodont Batrachians of the subsequent Trias. Their stride also is comparatively short, and the rows of impressions wide apart, as if the body of the animal had been broad, and its limbs short. [126] Fine slabs of these footprints have been presented by Mr. Sandford Fleming to the Geological Survey of Canada.