Skull usually triangular and more or less angulated, with the cranial sculpture well marked, the occipital condyles ossified, and the palatine foramina very small and placed far back; dentine of the teeth more or less complexly plicated. A ventral armor of elongated dermal scutes, and probably a sclerotic ring. Bodies of vertebræ fully ossified in the adult; intercentra present or absent. According to Atthey's figure (11) of the skull of the type genus, the palatine bears teeth which are situated immediately on the inner side of the maxilla, as in Mastodonsaurus (242). In the typical forms there is no postarticular process to the mandible. The North American species of this family are: _Eosaurus acadianus_ Marsh, _Eobaphetes kansensis_ Moodie, _Dendrerpeton acadianum_ Owen, _Dendrerpeton oweni_ Dawson, _Platystegos loricatum_ Dawson, _Baphetes planiceps_ Owen, _Baphetes minor_ Dawson. There is but little assurance that any of these species belong in this family. They are put there provisionally, pending future discoveries. Huxley suggests the relationship of _Eosaurus_ and _Anthracosaurus_ (Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc., XIX, 1863, p. 65; Scientific Memoirs, II, p. 566). =Genus BAPHETES Owen, 1854.= Owen, Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc. London, X, p. 207, pl. ix, 1854. Dawson, Air-breathers of the Coal Period, pp. 10-16, pl. ii, 1863. Type: _Baphetes planiceps_ Owen. Known only from an incomplete skull, which is large, broader than long; squamosals prolonged into obtuse horns. Teeth rather large, heterodont, arranged in a single row. Orbits placed well forward, frontals small, surface bones sculptured. =Baphetes planiceps Owen.= Owen, Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc. London, X, p. 207, pl. ix, 1854. Dawson, Air-breathers of the Coal Period, pp. 10-16, pl. ii, 1863. Type: Specimen in the British Museum of Natural History. Horizon and locality: Near Pictou, Nova Scotia (Coal Measures). The parts preserved include the premaxillaries, nasals, and portions of the frontal, prefrontal, and maxillary bones. The fossil is embedded in a mass of Pictou Coal from Nova Scotia and consists of the anterior extremity of the cranium (plate 22, fig. 6) and with the exterior surface of the bone embedded in the matrix, and its substance, for the most part, reduced to a thin layer by abrasion of the exposed inner layer. It displays accurately the contour of the fore part of the upper jaw, which was broad, obtuse, and rounded.