THE accomplished professor of zoology, in the university of Prague, publishes in this part, which consists of ninety-two folio pages and twelve beautiful plates, descriptions of the sections of the rocks whence the fossils were derived, lists of the fossils, and a careful résumé of the literature of the extinct amphibia, which are usually jumbled up together under the term Labyrinthodontia. The most valuable part of the work is an elaborate description of the new forms which abound in the strata overlying the Silurians, in a region where the Pilsner district may be considered typical. The Gaskohle there yielded a very rich fauna and flora of twenty-one new labyrinthodont species, some Orthacanthoids and species of Xenacanthus, Acanthodes, and Palæoniscus; besides Estheria, portions of Orthoptera and Julus. The plants named by O. Feistmantel were numerous and the few typical Permian forms are:—Equisetites contractus, Neuropteris imbricata, Odontopteris obtusiloba, and Schlotheimi, Asterocarpus Geinitzii, Schützia anomala, and Walchia piniformis. With these are Sigillaria, Stigmaria, Volk-mannia, Calamites, Lepidodendra, &c. The new amphiban genus Branchiosaurus is represented by five species in the whole district, Sparodus by two, Hylonomus by the same number, and there is a form called Dawsonia. In noticing the family Branchiosauridæ Dr. Fritsch draws attention to the necessity of allowing the name Stegocephali to replace that of the Labyrinthodontia for the order, as the labyrinthic condition of the teeth is not seen in skulls in which the supra-occipitals are two distinct ossifications, where there are post-orbital and supra-temporal bones, as well as well-developed epiotics, a sclerotic ring being present. The family just alluded to are broad-headed salamander-looking things with smooth teeth with large cavities. They have short ribs, vertebræ with relics of the chorda, and the parasphenoid is in the shape of a broad plate, which narrows in front. The skin is covered with delicate ornamented scales, and the remains of branchial rays are present. One of these, Branchiosaurus salamandroides, already described by the author, is carefully illustrated, and is a form well worth studying. Its osteology is plainly given, and the remnants of the breast plate and of the shoulder girdle and pelvis also. The new genus Sparodus has remarkably broad bones, which may be vomers, which carry numerous conical teeth, and the fore part of the parasphenoid is short and broad, and the palatines have a row of teeth on them. Allied to Hylerpeton, Owen, and Batrachiderpeton, Hancock, Sparodus has about seventeen teeth in the lower jaw on either side and the front ones are double the size of the others. The genus Dawsonia, allied more or less to Hylonomus, Dawson, is also one of those broad frogheaded salamandroid-looking branchiate amphibia. The sculpturing of the head plates is remarkable, and there appears to be a new bone interpolated behind the postfrontal. Beneath, the vomers have teeth, and so have the long part of the pre-sphenoid, the outer portions of the pterygoids, the palatines, superior-maxillaries, and the pre-maxillaries. The clearly written book is made all the more valuable by the introduction of Miall's reports to the British Association on the labyrinthodonts, and it is pleasing to note the author's graceful recognition of the assistance, he has had in his work from British palæontologists. Fauna der Gaskohle und der Kalksteine der Permformation Böhmens. Von Dr. Ant. Fritsch, Band i. Heft i. (Prague, 1879.)