296 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



The food of the bird was found to consist almost entirely 

 of insects, principally of small beetles, but fragments of flies 

 and spiders were present, as were also a few small seeds 

 and remains of vegetable tissue. 



THE HISTORY OF THE TRIASSIC REPTILE 

 SCLEROMOCHLUS TA YLORI (A. Smith Wood- 

 ward). 



By William Taylor. 



More than thirty years ago the late Mr James Grant, 

 schoolmaster in Lossiemouth, secured two pieces of hard 

 sandstone from a quarry there, containing impressions of 

 part of two skeletons of very slender reptiles. This fossil 

 was called Telerpeton, as all small reptilian remains here 

 were then believed to belong to that genus. The late 

 Professor T. H. Huxley of London examined it, and it was 

 marked Telerpeton with his red paint. That was no proof 

 that Huxley believed it to be Telerpeton ; he only marked it 

 under the name that was sent to him, but he thought it too 

 obscure for investigation, and nothing was done with it at 

 that time. 



Early in 1893 the Rev. Dr George Gordon took me to 

 see Mr Grant's fossils, and I at once saw that the slender 

 skeletons could not be of the same genus as the stout 

 Telerpeton which Professor Huxley had formerly described. 



The minute casts of teeth, and the casts of long, slender, 

 bird-like bones indicated a very different creature. I told 

 Dr Gordon about it, and he said, " Keep at it, it will turn out 

 a new genus." Dr Gordon died towards the end of that 

 year, but I did not forget his earnest request, Mr Grant 

 died a few years later, but I still kept the little fossil in my 

 mind. I was allowed to take some of the quarrymen to Mrs 

 Grant's house to see the fossil, that they might keep a look- 

 out for any slender markings that might be found in the 



