Fossil Birds in the Marsh Collection of Yale University 7 



(some say Jurassic but as they mean Wealden the horizon must be 

 Lower Cretaceous). If you make these bones out as those of birds 

 they would be the oldest in America. However, they may be ptero- 

 dactyl bones." 



This specimen was received by me on the 21st of April, 1914, and 

 I found it to be two small, very friable bits of bone. One piece, much 

 crumbled, remained in the hard, gray matrix; the other was out of it. 

 It is a long bone, and hollow, with thin walls to the cavity, and in 

 some respects resembles a coracoid of a bird of the size of a Woodcock. 

 It is altogether too fragmentary to serve the purpose of correct identi- 

 fication, and my impression is, it never belonged to a bird. 



This Como material (Wyoming) is quite abundant in the palaeonto- 

 logical collections of the United States National Museum, and through 

 the kindness of Mr. C. W. Gilmorel was allowed to examine a large part, 

 of it. Most of the fossil bones are black, brittle, and still in the same 

 hard, gray matrix, being there considered Jurassic. I failed to find 

 anything that could be considered bird. Most of them were reptilian, 

 as chelonians, small forms related to the Crocodilia, and so on. Mr. 

 Gilmore had already described some new forms from it, and had others 

 he intended to describe later on. So far as this examination carried 

 me, it left the impression on my mind that we have yet to find the 

 fossil remains of birds, as birds, from that horizon. 



The specimen Doctor Schuchert sent me is Cat. No. 976, and marked 

 "Birds ? Qar. 9. Como, Wy. W. H. Reed Col. 1880," and on the 

 cork of the vial "Jurassic." In passing I may say that I examined 

 the fossil remains of such pterodactyls as were to be found in the 

 collection of the United States National Museum, and I am convinced 

 that this specimen never belonged to one of those animals. There is 

 a far greater likelihood that it belonged to some — not very large — 

 reptilian form ; further than this I would not care to say. 



Beyond the " toothed forms," as seen in Hesperornis and Ichthyornis, 

 Professor Marsh described in all not more than some twenty-seven or 

 twenty-eight species, and the majority of these were referred to the 

 same avian families and genera as those now found in the existing 

 avifauna. 



Most of the material I have here to describe was undoubtedly seen 

 by him, as it was obtained by his staft" of collectors. The museum 

 collections in his day contained but few study skeletons of existing 

 birds, thus rendering the proper comparison of bird fossils an unprofit- 

 able and uncertain task, and this may have influenced him to set 

 aside what he had collected and suspected of being "bird." 



