24 R. W. Shufeldt 



PAL.EOTRINGA VAGANS Marsh. 



(Plate VI, Fig. 40.) 



Marsh, Amer. Journ. Sci., ser. 3, III, 1872, 365. 



Holotype. Cat. No. 835, Peabody Museum, Yale Univ^ersity. Homerstown, 

 New Jersey. Cretaceous. J. G. Meirs, collector. 



The material upon which Professor Marsh established this species 

 consists of the distal end of a fossil tibio-tarsus, and of pieces of shaft 

 which evidently belong to it; indeed, the one of the least caliber is 

 the lower part in continuity. 



All the characters of this bone have been practically destroyed 

 through loss, chipping, or otherwise. The external condyle is entirely 

 gone and the internal one very nearly so. The "tendinal bridge" 

 alone remains intact, but that, as a part of the bone, in the majority 

 of instances points to very little. It is surely not to be taken into 

 account when all the other characters about it have been removed and 

 lost. What there is to this specimen vaguely suggests a larine species, 

 as to the kind of bird it may have belonged to in life; but the material 

 is altogether too meagre and fragmentary for reference. 



Pal^otringa vetus Marsh. 



{Plate VIII, Fig. 59.) 



Marsh, Amer. Journ. Sci., ser. 2, XLIX, 1870, 209. 



No Cat. Number. Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia. Burlington 

 Co., New Jersey. 



This specimen consists of three very imperfect fragments of a left 

 tibio-tarsus (lower third). Dating back to 1834, these have, as a 

 whole, a very remarkable history, ha\ing been examined not only by 

 Professor Marsh, but by Dr. Morton and Dr. Harlan, and several 

 papers pubHshed on the subject. 



Dr. Morton claimed that it was the fossil remains, as far as this 

 went, of a species of bird belonging to the genus Scolopax, and in this 

 he came nearer the truth, probably, than any of those scientists who 

 subsequently examined it.^ If it belonged to an extinct Woodcock 

 (or Snipe?) {Scolopax), it was surely a big one; but it is just as likely 

 to have been a very large Plover, or a Godwit, or some other limicoline 

 form, though certainly no species of Tringa, like our existing sand- 

 pipers, whatever the ancient "tip-ups" and stints may have been like, 

 — a point, I believe, upon which we have no literature. 



1 Synopsis of the Organic Remains of the Cretaceous of the U. S., 32, Phila- 

 delphia, 1834. 



