Fossil Birds in the Marsh Collection of Yale University 25 



Pedicecetes phasianellus (Linn.). 

 {Plate XV, Fig. 127.) 



Gracitlavus lentils Marsh, Amer. Joum. Sci., ser. 3, XIV, 1877, 253. 

 Ichthyornis lentus Marsh, Odontonithes, 1880, 198. 



Holotype. Cat. No. 1796, Peabody Museum, Yale University. Near Mc- 

 Kinney, Texas. Cretaceous. B. F. Mudge, collector. 



There is but one fragment in this lot upon which the species is 

 based; it is a fairly well-preserved fossil distal portion of a left tarso- 

 metatarsus (PI. XV, Fig. 127), and in life it belonged to some tetra- 

 onine species of average size. It is from a species of Grouse, and 

 had nothing to do with a Cormorant, as Professor Marsh seemed to 

 think. 



I have carefully compared the fossil bone, or the specimen rather, 

 with the corresponding distal end of the tarso-metatarsus of a number 

 of our existing species of Grouse and their allies, as Dendragapus, 

 Lagopus, Pedicecetes, Canachites, etc., and I find it comes so close to 

 PedicEcetes phasianellus that truth and palaeontology will best be served 

 by referring it to that genus. (Compared with No. 17958, Coll. U. S. 

 Nat. Mus. Ost. Birds.) 



Dr. Lull sends me the following memorandum (taken from the 

 Museum records) in regard to this specimen: "Ichthyornis lentus 

 H. T. Cretaceous. Niobrara, (ace. Hay.)" 



Should this mean that this specimen belonged to an Ichthyornis, I 

 fail to entertain the same opinion. The tarso-metatarsus of an 

 Ichthyornis is well known, and has been correctly described and fig- 

 ured by Marsh in his Odontornithes for /. victor (p. 175, PL XXXIII, 

 Figs. 9-12). He says of it: "Of the three distal articular faces, the 

 middle is the largest, and most advanced. The outer or fourth stands 

 but little back of the middle, and is directed well outward, being more 

 oblique than in the Tern." This obliquity is well shown in the figures 

 and is characteristic. It is not at all present jn the specimen at hand, 

 which on the contrary presents all the characters of the distal extremity 

 of the tarso-metatarsus in some small Pheasant or large Grouse. 



Genus Telmatornis Marsh. 

 {Plate VI, Figs. 36, 37.) 



Marsh, Amer. Joum, Sci., ser. 2, XLIX, 1870, 210. Type, by subsequent 

 designation, Telmatornis prisons Marsh (Hay, 1902). 



