90 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



A good mould of the feet of the South American Ostrich {Rhea 

 Americana) shows rather indistinctly the normal number of phalanges 

 in the middle toe, but gives no idea of the number in the other toes. 

 This mould was taken by Professor Jeffries Wyman. 



These resvilts show the need of further investigations in this direc- 

 tion. They awaken a deeper interest in the remarkable uniformity 

 of the phalangeal impressions of the fossil footmarks, apparently so 

 much more perfect than in living animals. 



Were any of the Animals that made the Fossil FootmarTcs Birds ? 



The facts above stated as to the number of phalanges, if admitted, 

 of which some doubt may still remain, very much weaken the strong- 

 est argument for the ornithic character of the thick-toed bipeds ; 

 perhaps they are absolutely fatal to such an opinion ; yet in all 

 other respects the tracks correspond vs'ith those of birds. They were 

 undoubtedly bipeds, and the long stride taken by some of them cor- 

 responds with that of wading birds, but of no other known animals. 

 Whether anatomists would admit that the earliest birds might have 

 been so unlike the present species as to a slight difference in the 

 number of phalanges, must be left for them to decide. 



Professor Hitchcock referred to the Anoyncepus as furnishing an- 

 other argument against the ornithic character, — especially to a re- 

 markable specimen recently obtained for the Amherst Cabinet. It 

 is eleven feet long, and of its forty-nine tracks, forty-five belong to 

 Anomcepus, and sixteen of them are so perfect as to show the papillae 

 of the toes more or less. A drawing of the slab of the natural size 

 was exhibited, showing the position and form, the phalanges and claws, 

 and the papillae of the whole. Four rows of the tracks were mani- 

 fest, the longest containing seventeen tracks, and three of these rows 

 would be pronounced by a good judge of tracks to be those of thick- 

 toed birds ; especially as the phalangeal impi'essions, — certainly on the 

 inner and middle toes, and probably also on the outer one, — corre- 

 spond with those of birds ; that is, as we have been accustomed to re- 

 gard them. For here, too, the first phalanx of the outer toe is thrown 

 back beyond that of the other toes. On looking, however, at the 

 fourth row, which for the first five steps exactly resembles the others, 

 we find at the fifth step two tracks nearly abreast, with long stout 

 heels running back several inches, and a little in advance two small 

 five-toed impressions ; proving beyond all question that the animal 



