Fossil Birds in the Marsh Collection of Yale University 41 



rim, the whole monopohzing the aforesaid location. This does not 

 occur as a character in the tarso-metatarsi of any of the existing 

 American Grouse I have examined; but it may be a ralline character 

 heretofore not observed by me. 



The general fades of this part of the skeleton of the foot and the 

 phalange aforesaid appears to me to be quite tetraonine in character.^ 



Grus marshi sp. nov. 



{Plate XV, Figs. 144-147.) 



Holotype. Cat. No. 888, Peabody Museum, Yale University. Henry's Fork, 

 Wyoming. Eocene (Bridger). L. LaMothe, collector. 



This new species of an extinct crane I base upon the presence in 

 the Yale collection of the distal end of a right tibio-tarsus (fossil, 

 adult) , which is nearly perfect as far as it goes. 



As the type of Grus proavus Marsh has been lost, I have no means 

 of comparing this specimen with it. I have, however, compared it 

 with the type of Grus haydeni Marsh, and with the corresponding part 

 of the tibio-tarsi of existing American Gruidee, and I may say that, 

 while it came from a Grus, it did not come from the skeleton of a 

 Grus atnericana or G. canadensis or G. mexicana, as the comparisons 

 I have made leave no doubt upon this point. 



The specimen has the outer surface of the external condyle ground 

 off, practically destroying its characters. On the other hand, the 

 internal condyle, although it has been broken and repaired, presents 

 all the usual characters of this part of the bone as they occur in any 

 ordinary species of Grus. Both in form and in character this condyle 

 agrees with the internal one in Grus canadensis (No. 820, Coll. U. S. 

 Nat. Mus.), except that in Grus marshi it is smaller, the species itself 

 having been a considerably smaller bird, than either Grus canadensis 



1 Since what I have said above in regard to Gallinuloides wyomingensis I have, 

 thanks to the Museum of Comparative Zoology of Harvard University, had the 

 opportunity of examining the slab containing this beautiful specimen of a fossil 

 bird. It was in my possession for a fortnight or more, during which time I made 

 two negatives of it, presenting the form nearly natural size, and reproducing in the 

 photograph the minutest detail of its structure. During the time mentioned, I 

 prepared an exhaustive paper on the subject, illustrating it with a number of plates 

 and figures. This has been submitted to a scientific editor in Europe, and it wiU 

 doubtless be published later on. In my opinion, this extinct bird had no ralline 

 characters in its skeleton; while on the other hand, every osteological character it 

 presents is distinctly tetraonine as I clearly point out in my paper. Further, I 

 have suggested a new generic name for it, in that its place in the system may be 

 better understood and appreciated. 



