as eight or ten individuals have been obtained from three erect Sigillariæ, indicating that these creatures were quite abundant, as well as active and terrestrial in their mode of life. With respect to the affinities of this species, I think it is abundantly manifest that it presents no close relationship with any reptile hitherto discovered in the Carboniferous system, except perhaps some of the smaller forms in the Permian of Europe, with which Credner and Fritsch have compared it. It is scarcely necessary to say that the characters above described entirely remove this animal from the Labyrinthodonts. Equal difficulties attend the attempt to place it in any other group of recent or extinct Batrachians or proper reptiles. The structures of the skull, and of some points in the vertebræ, certainly resemble those of Batrachians; but, on the other hand, the well-developed ribs, evidently adapted to enlarge the chest in respiration, the pelvis, and the cutaneous covering, are unexampled in modern Batrachians, and assimilate the creature to the true lizards. I have already, in my original description of the animal in 1859, expressed my belief that _Hylonomus_ may have had lacertian affinities, but I do not desire to speak too positively in this matter;[137] and shall content myself with stating the following alternatives as to the probable relations of these animals, (1) They may have been true reptiles of low type, and with batrachian tendencies. (2) They may have been representatives of a new family of Batrachians, exhibiting in some points lacertian affinities. (3) They may have been the young of some larger reptile, too large and vigorous to be entrapped in the pitfalls presented by the hollow Sigillaria stumps, and in its adult state losing the batrachian peculiarities apparent in the young. Whichever of these views we may adopt, the fact remains, that in the structure of this curious little creature we have peculiarities both batrachian and lacertian, in so far as our experience of modern animals is concerned. It would, however, accord with observed facts in relation to other groups of extinct animals, that the primitive Batrachians of the coal period should embrace in their structures points in after times restricted to the true reptiles. On the other hand, it would equally accord with such facts that the first-born of Lacertians should lean towards a lower type, by which they may have been preceded. My present impression is, that they may constitute a separate family or order, to which I would give the name of Microsauria, and which may be regarded as allied, on the one hand, to certain of the humbler lizards, as the Gecko or Agama, and, on the other, to the tailed Batrachians. [137] I am glad to say that Fritsch and Credner now lean to the same view.