Many of these and allied genera have left their footprints in slabs of Sandstone, both Lower and New Red, in Europe, Africa, and America. But although their spoors are common enough, only a few can with certainty be referred to Stegocephali, _e.g._ _Saurichnites salamandroides_ of the Lower Red of Germany. The spoors of _Chirotherium_, common in the New Red of Germany and England, for instance in Cheshire, belong to unknown owners; both the large hind feet (which measure nearly half a foot in length) and the much smaller fore feet, had five digits, the first of which stood off like a thumb. Five-fingered Stegocephali are unknown. There is an almost complete absence of fossil Amphibia from the Upper Trias to the Oligocene. The Stegocephali as such seem to have died out with the Trias. The recent Amphibia, of course, must have had ancestors in the Mesozoic age. There is one little skeleton, from the Wealden of Belgium, which belonged to a newt-like creature, called _Hylaeobatrachus croyi_. Scarce fragments, described as _Megalotriton_, are known from the Oligocene of France, and _Triton_ itself seems to be indicated by {84}remnants in the Lower Miocene of France and Germany. But fairly complete specimens of large creatures, much resembling _Cryptobranchus_, have been found in the Upper Miocene of Oeningen, Canton Solothurn, Switzerland. The first known specimen, now at Haarlem, indicating a total length of 3 feet or more, was described and figured in the year 1726 by Scheuchzer, in a learned dissertation entitled "_Homo diluvii testis_." Betrübtes Beingerüst von einem alten Sünder Erweiche Herz und Sinn der neuen Bosheitskinder. Which may be rendered as follows:– Oh, sad remains of bone, frame of poor Man of sin Soften the heart and mind of sinful recent kin. This was the motto attached to the illustration, and it remained a warning to mankind until Cuvier declared the skeleton to be that of some large newt. Tschudi named it _Andrias scheuchzeri_, but it is scarcely generically distinct from _Cryptobranchus_, being almost intermediate between _C. alleghaniensis_ and _C. japonicus_, see p. 97. _SUB-CLASS II. LISSAMPHIBIA._ _Amphibia without dermal armour._ ORDER I. APODA OR LIMBLESS AMPHIBIA. The Amphibia Apoda, Coeciliae or Gymnophiona, are a small group of worm-shaped, burrowing creatures, restricted to the Neotropical and Palaeotropical regions, excluding Madagascar. They have no limbs and no girdles. The tail is extremely short; the vertebrae are pseudo-centrous, and most of them carry rather long ribs, none of which, however, meet to form a sternum. The whole snake-like body is covered with a smooth and slimy skin which forms numerous transverse folds or rings.