ORIGIN AND CHARACTERISTICS 9 



they were unable to fly seems certain. Some 

 Ornitholites of this era found in Europe are 

 intermediate between the Storks and Ibises 

 (Ibidopodia), another a species allied to the 

 Flamingoes (Palaelodus). We must attribute 

 the comparative scarcity of Ornitholites in the 

 Pliocene deposits either to the prevailing con- 

 ditions at that time being unsuitable for their 

 effectual preservation or to our own want of 

 success in discovering them. The fragments of 

 the Pliocene avifauna so far as they have been 

 revealed by scientific investigation represent 

 the remains of birds differing little from types 

 existing to-day, w^hilst many of them were 

 undoubtedly generically and in some cases 

 possibly specifically the same. A significantly 

 still greater similarity characterises the avine 

 remains of the Post-Tertiary Period ; whilst 

 the geographical area occupied by these 

 Pleistocene birds is in most cases the same as 

 that of their surviving representatives or de- 

 scendants. In the majority of instances these 

 Post-Tertiary relics are, so far as we can judge, 

 of the same species that exist to-day. Some 

 of course have become extinct altogether, as for 

 instance the Crane (Grus primigenia) and the 

 Pelican, remains of which latter have been 



