HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



ZZ 



many hitherto totally unknown, and skins and pre- 

 pares them outside his little hut, amidst a circle 

 of admiring natives. He has fever slightly, but it 

 is forgotten in the excitement of adding new birds 

 to his collections every day. Amongst others, he 

 records another new bird of paradise {Drepajiornis 

 Albcrtisii) with a curved hoopoe-like bill, and the 

 male of which has a purple gorget, flame-coloured 

 greaves, and a head-piece of burnished brass, while 

 his mate is clad in modest brown and grey. 



But after a considerable stay, this fertile region has 

 to be left, as the natives will not supply food, and 

 believe the white man brings them misfortune ; so he 

 has to return to the low lands, and subsequently 

 explores the southern coast of Papua, and makes 

 sundry expeditions to the villages in the neighbour- 

 hood of Yule island, and enriches his collections with 

 rare birds and insects. To what an extent he was 

 successful, we may judge when we are told he brings 

 away from one inland village "twenty thousand 

 coleoptera, seven hundred reptiles, and a great 

 number of fish, mammalia, and birds ! " 



The second volume is taken up with the account of 



two interesting voyages of discovery made in a small 



steam launch up the Fly river, the largest stream of 



New Guinea, and which, rising in the centre of the 



island, flows in a meandering course through mighty 



jungles and broad prairies, past the villages of many 



•wild tribes and peoples, until it passes out amongst a 



hundred islands into the broad Gulf of Papua. The 



possibility of finding gold in this region, and the 



certainty of a great future before it, makes this part 



of the book very interesting, but it is impossible to 



follow the author through all his adventures on the 



Fly river, and we must refer readers to the book 



itself, confident they will appreciate the excellence of 



the engravings, and agree with us that it is a valuable 



contribution to our stock of information of a little 



known land. 



BIRD STUDIES IN CHALK. 



[After Marsh.)* 

 By Agnes Crane. 



SOME years have elapsed since palseontological 

 circles were startled by the announcement of 

 •the former existence in America of birds, unlike all 

 other birds in structure, because they were furnished 

 with teeth. We accepted the birds with teeth, and 

 have since heard with complacency of their co- 

 existence with aerial reptiles (Pteranodons) without 

 teeth, and that toothless Ichthyosaurs represented 

 their predaceous race in the Cretaceous oceans of that 

 continent, where it seems almost as though generic 

 dentary characters were usually reversed. All these 



* " Extinct Toothed Birds (Odontornithes) of North America," 

 by O. C. Marsh, Vol. i. of the "Memoirs of the Peabody 

 Museum of Yale," Newhaven, Conn., iS8o. 34 plates and 40 

 'ivoodcuts. 



facts, and many others of like interesting import, have 

 been in the main revealed through the indefatigable 

 exertions of Professor O. C. Marsh of Yale, who, a 

 true knight-errant palreontological, has inspired and 

 led many a crusade into the far West, amid difficulties, 

 great hardships, and no little danger, and in spite of 

 tropical heat, Arctic cold, and unsympathetic Indians 

 on the war path, has brought to light the remains of 

 nearly a thousand new species of extinct vertebrates. 

 All of these, now safely housed in the cellars of the 

 Peabody Museum of Yale, await full description and 

 illustration at the hands of their discoverer. 



But Professor Marsh, like Alexander, apparently 



Fig. 22. — Brain cavity of 



Hcspcror7iis rcgalis (Marsh). 



f natural size. 



Fig. 23. — Brain cavity of Loon 



(Colyinbits tonjuaiusj. 



Natural size. 



Fig.'24. — Brain cavity Fig. 25.— Brain cavity Fig. 26. — Brain cavity 

 of young Alligator. oi Ichikyornis vie- oi Sterna cantinca. 

 Natural size. tor (Marsh). ^ nat. size. Natural size. 



ot. Olfactory. 

 <?/. Optic lobes. 



m. Medulla. 



c. Cerebral hemispheres. 

 cb. Cerebellum. 

 (After Marsh.) 



Still sighs for fresh worhls to conquer, and is unable 

 long to refrain from prosecuting his active researches 

 in the field. Hence it is that eight years have elapsed 

 since the discovery of the first bird with teeth, during 

 the second of those memorable expeditions into the 

 Western territories, and their full history and that of 

 other new forms has remained unwritten. Brief 

 records of the most significant characters of their 

 structure have appeared from time to time in the 

 "American Journal of Arts and Sciences," and thence 

 have been incorporated into general scientific litera- 

 ture. We have now to welcome the appearance of 

 the first volume of the " Memoirs of the Peal>ody 



