FOSSIL BIRDS IN THE MARSH COLLEC- 

 TION OF YALE UNIVERSITY 



By R. W. Shufeldt. 

 INTRODUCTION. 



On the twelfth of March, 1914, Professor Charles Schuchert, 

 Curator of the Geological Department of the Peabody Museum, 

 Yale University, sent me for revision nearly all the fossil birds (t^-pes) 

 that had, in former years, been described, and in some few instances 

 figured, by Professor O. C. Marsh. These did not include the species 

 of the genera Ichthyornis and Hesperornis, and one or two others, as 

 they were then receiving the attention of Professor R. S. Lull of the 

 above institution. The material upon which Marsh based his Grus 

 proavus could not, after long and careful search, be located, and up to 

 the present writing I have never seen it. 



Five of the types described by that distinguished palaeontologist 

 were in the collection of the x^cademy of Natural Sciences of Phila- 

 delphia, and for the loan of these I am under great obligations to 

 Doctor Witmer Stone of that institution who, with unbounded kind- 

 ness, sent them to me for study in the present connection. They are 

 the types of Professor Marsh's Uria affinis, Uria antiqua, Fitffinis 

 conradi, Grus haydeni and Falceotringa vetus. In the following pages 

 all of these have received my most careful study and consideration, 

 while figures of them are given on the Plates. 



In his letter transmitting the material, Professor Schuchert was 

 good enough to say: "You are at liberty to rework this material and 

 to photograph it as you think best." Later on, to still further place 

 me in his debt, he sent me over one hundred more lots of fossil birds 

 from the Peabody Museum to describe and figure, and which he sug- 

 gested should appear in the same contribution — that is, in the present 

 one, in which all this material is described. Not only am I to have 

 the pleasure of thanking Professor Schuchert and Doctor Stone for 

 these most unusual favors, but also Doctor Richard S. Lull and Aid, 

 T. A. Bostwick of the Peabody Museum, for tabulated information 

 taken from the Records regarding certain data that I needed in this 

 work, which was not an easy task by any means, and thus my apprc 



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