Reptile of Old Red Sandstone, from near Elgin, Morayshire.

Eggs of Batrachians (?) in the Old Red Sandstone of Scotland.—At [page 344.] of this work I have given two figures ([figs. 397] and [398].) of small groups of eggs, very common in the shales and sandstones of the "Old Red" of Kincardineshire, Forfarshire, and Fife. I threw out as a conjecture, that they might belong to gasteropodous mollusca, like those represented in [fig. 399.] [p. 345.]; but Dr. Mantell, some years ago, showed me a small bundle of the dried-up eggs of the common English frog (see [fig. 524 a.]), black and carbonaceous, and so identical in appearance with the fossils in question, that he suggested the probability of these last being of Batrachian origin. The plants by which they are often accompanied ([fig. 398.] [p. 344.]), I formerly supposed to be Fuci, but Mr. Bunbury tells me that their grass-like form agrees well with the idea of their being freshwater, and of the family Fluviales.

The absence of all shells, so far as our researches have yet gone, in the slates and sandstones of Scotland above alluded to, raises a presumption against their marine origin, and a still stronger one against the fossil eggs being those of Gasteropoda. It is well known that a single female of the Batrachian tribe ejects annually an astonishing quantity of spawn. Mr. Newport, author of many accurate researches into the metamorphoses of the Amphibia, having examined my fossils from Forfarshire, concurs in Dr. Mantell's opinion that the clusters of eggs ([figs. 397.] [398.] [p. 344.]) may be those of frogs; while other larger ones, occurring singly or in pairs in the same slates, and often attached to a leaf, may be the ova of a gigantic Triton or Salamander. (See [figs. 523], [524], [525.]) I may observe that the subdivision of the Old Red Sandstone, in which these plants and ova occur (No. 4. of the section, [fig. 62.] [p. 48.]), is considerably lower in position than the rock in which the Telerpeton of Elgin is imbedded.

Fig. 523. Fossil.—Old Red.

Fig. 523. Slab of Old Red Sandstone, Forfarshire, with eggs of Batrachians.

Fig. 524. Recent.