270 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



the tail of this fossil creature from all known birds, and also the anti- 

 quity of the formation in which it occurs, we may at least safely infer 

 that (if it be a bird at all) it represents perhaps one of the very 

 earliest examples of its class. And this seems the more consistent when 

 we consider the analogous change which has taken place in the class of 



D Cj J. 



fishes. For in the oldest fossil fish we find the same curious elongated 

 tail (seen only in the sharks and sturgeon of the present day), in which 

 the vertebral column is prolonged into the upper lobe of the caudal 

 fin, forming the characteristic feature of the Heterocercal fishes. 

 Whereas in the almost universally-prevailing type of modern fishes 

 the tail-fin springs from the last joint of the vetebral column, giving us 

 the order of flomocercal, or even-tailed fishes. 



That the feathers are real bona fide feathers like those of a bird, 

 seems to be placed beyond all doubt by the evidence of the impres- 

 sions of both wings and tail, descending, as they do, to microscopic 

 exactness. It has been suggested that a creature furnished with such 

 feathers must have had a beak to keep them in order with. 



Among the flying lizards of the Solenhofen slates is one described 

 by H. Von Meyer, under the name of Rhamphorhynchus, as having 

 " the fore part of each jaw without teeth, and probably incased in a 

 horny beak; but behind this edentulous portion there are four or five 

 large and long teeth, followed by several smaller ones. The tail long, 

 stiff, and slender" Such a flying reptile might have been endowed 

 with feathers, in which case the toothless portion, incased in a horny 

 beak, would be well adapted for pluming and cleaning its wings acd 

 tail. 



Such is the present state of the evidence. There is nothing in this 

 fossil which elucidates the origin of the bird-tracks of Connecticut, 

 although perhaps contemporaneous with them. 



Professor Owen decidedly inclines to the opinion that this curious 

 creature is a bird, but many very distinguished naturalists, who have 

 carefully examined it, have professed themselves unable to come to 

 any such positive conclusion. 



PREHISTOKIC MAN. 



Since the attention of the scientific world has been attracted to the 

 discoveries of M. Boucher de Perthes in the gravel-beds of Amiens 

 and Abbeville, of France, facts connected with the early history of 

 the human race have continued to turn up, and now show themselves 

 in a very different light from that in which they were formerly wont 

 to be viewed. An interesting discovery is noticed in a late number 

 of the Revue Archeologique, made during the summer of 18G1, near 

 Laon, in France, in the department of the Aisne. In this locality 

 a bed of lignite is worked for agricultural purposes. This bed lies 

 at the foot of a small hill of the tertiary epoch, at the base of which 

 occur argillaceous strata alternating with the lignite. Above are 

 large masses of sand, including some layers of shells, and over them 

 again come argillaceous beds, while the top of the hill is composed of 

 hard calcaire grossier. The lignite bed is reached by subterraneous 

 illeries, which run in different directions beneath the hill, some to 

 a great distance. It is about two metres thirty centimetres in thick- 



