File:The Quarterly journal of the Geological Society of London (12684250433).jpg

1852..
MANTELL ON SUPPOSED FOSSIL OVA.
107
and removal of the ova are distinctly shown ; and they entirely corre-
spond with those in the recent carbonized mass from Clapham.
Fig. 1
Fig. 2.
Fig. 3.-
Fig.l. Slab of Old Red Sandstone,
Forfarshire, with eggs ofBatrU'
chians ?
a. Ova in a carbonized state.
b. Egg cells ; the ova having been shed.
Fig. 2. Eggs of the common Frog,
Rana temporaria, /rom a dried-
^a f^P pond in Clapham Common.
a. Portion of the ovary.
b. A transverse section of the mass ex-
hibiting the form of the egg-cells.
-Devonian Shale, Forfarshire, with impression of Plants
and Eggs of Batrachiansl.
a. Two pair of ova resembling those of large Salamanders or Tritons on the same leaf.
b, b. Detached ova. c. Egg-cells of Frogs ?
.The use of the above woodcuts has been kindly granted by Sir C. Lyell..
Associated with these remains are small, oval, roundish bodies,
disposed singly or in pairs among, and sometimes adherent to, the
foliage with which they are collocated ; these fossils so strikingly re-
semble the eggs of aquatic Salamanders, that, admitting the batra-
chian character of the specimens previously described, there is every
reason to conclude they are the mineralized ova of reptiles, which,
like the recent Tritons, deposited their eggs on the leaves of aquatic
plants.
Aware how startling such a statement might appear to those who
had not examined the evidence on which it is founded, I requested
my friend Mr. Newport, our eminent physiologist, whose profound
investigations of the development of the ova in the Amphibia have
recently received the award of a Royal Medal, to allow me to place
before him the facts which bear on this question ; and I am permitted
to state that, after a careful investigation of the fossil and recent ova,
Mr. Newport concurs with me in the opinion that the carbonized
eggs in the Devonian shales of Forfarshire are referable to Batrachians;
those which are in clusters, and in size and form and arrangement
resemble the spawn of the Frog, belong to Banidce ; while the larger
ova that occur singly or in pairs, and are attached to leaves, are pro-