248 NATURAL SCIENCE. April, 1895. 



and proximal phalanges lie, not in the same plane as the feathers, but 

 well above that plane. Whatever flattening there might have been 

 it could not have lifted the second digit well above the level of the 

 proximal ends of the quills it was supposed to have supported. The 

 bones of a dead bird, which has fallen on the bottom of a stream, or 

 lake, or sea, will naturally fall to the level of the underlying deposit 

 as fast as the decay of the soft parts allows them to do so. The 

 weight of overlying deposits may even flatten out ribs and bring them 

 all to one level. It may even crush the bones where they lie one 

 over the other — I am not sure that this has not occurred in the 

 left hand— but it has not, in this case, crushed the skull, or the 

 phalanges of the third digit of the right hand, or the pelvis ; and it 

 has not brought the proximal ends of the two femoral bones into 

 juxtaposition. Had it brought the digits IV and V to the same 

 level as I, II, and III, we should have seen them, and these latter 

 might well have been crushed by them ; but the perfect preservation 

 of these digits, even where they cross each other, and the fact that 

 they do lie, especially the second, well above the level of the feather- 

 surface, shows that there has been in this case little, if any, deforma- 

 tion by pressure of overlying strata ; hence the absence of a trace of 

 digits IV and V on the surface. If any such deformation had 

 occurred it would have brought II and III to the level of the 

 feather-surface. No matter, therefore, what pressure there may have 

 been, the fact that those digits II and III lie now above that 

 surface shows that they did originally lie above it, and not below it 

 as all views except my own demand. 



May I ask in conclusion that " Paddy from Cork," who says 

 (p. 143) that the Romanes restoration in " Darwin and After Darwin" 

 " is a copy of one by Shufeldt which appeared in the Century magazine 

 some eight or ten years ago," will turn to that magazine for January, 

 1886, p. 355, and then inform us whether that is the sketch by 

 Shufeldt to which he refers ? If so, it is rather a libel on Shufeldt to 

 call the Romanes figure a copy, for Shufeldt distinctly shows both 

 primary and secondary quill-feathers, though most of the secondary 

 ones are attached to the humerus (!), while in the Romanes figure 

 the primaries are abolished altogether, and the secondaries are 

 apparently all attached to the ulna. There are also various 

 differences in head, trunk, tail, and feet. If this is not the figure to 

 which " Paddy" refers, if he will simply say so, I will endeavour to 



find the one he does refer to. 



C. Herbert Hurst. 



Correction. — On p. 122, line 6, for "tibia," read " tibio-tarsus." 

 Postscript. — I have just seen an article by Mile. Norsa in the Archives Italiennes 

 de Biologic (1894), on the morphology of birds' wings, in which she states that 

 in all cases {i.e., the Common Fowl, Guinea-fowl, Turkey, Pheasant, Duck, Goose, 

 and Pigeon) which she has investigated, there appears, during development, a 

 transitory digit on the radial side. — C. H. H. 

 March 6, 1895. 



