72 R. W. Shufeldt 



here propose the name for it of Phasianus alfhildce, ^ as a slight 

 tribute to my wife, Alfhild, and in recognition of her faithful work in 

 the matter of preparing fair copy of many of my original manu- 

 scripts during recent years, to the extent of many thousand pages. 

 This she has invariably accomplished with promptness and accuracy, 

 requiring on her part an extensive knowledge of a varied character, 

 especially in punctuation, orthography and construction, in order to 

 eliminate such slips as are usually made in first copy by writers in 

 science, she thus placing the printers of scientific contributions in 

 many parts of the world in her debt. 



The discovery of this new and distinct form of Pheasant emphasizes 

 the fact that at one time there must have been a number of large 

 tetraonine species present in this country during the Eocene forma- 

 tion, and these have, for reasons unknown to us, died out in time. I 

 have already invited attention to a much larger form than Phasianus 

 alfhildce in the likewise extinct Palceo phasianus meleagroides Shuf., 

 an account of which appears in the Bulletin of the American Museum 

 of Natural History (Vol. XXXII, Art. XVI, pp. 291-293, Aug. 4, 

 1913). 



BIRD (A large Eagle related to HalicEelus leucocephalus?) . 



{Plate XII, Figs. 88, 89.) 



Cat. No. 982, I'eabody Museum, Yale University. Haystack Mt., Wyoming 

 Light colored clay, 100 feet below the horizon of Haystack Butte. J. Heisey 

 collector. 



This specimen, with others more or less imperfect, was found in the 

 same lot with Phasianus alfhilda;. It is the distal end of the pre-basal 

 phalange of the second toe of the right foot. I have compared it with 

 the corresponding joint in several Eagles, and it comes nearer to 

 Halimetus than it does to any other species. On such meagre mate- 

 rial, however, I would not care to bestow upon it a new name; more- 

 over, inasmuch as some of its characters are at variance with those in 

 Haliceetus, it may have belonged to some big vulterine form, which 

 possessed toe-joints very much like those in large eagles — such a species 

 of Old World Vulture, for example, as Gypaelus harhatus. There 

 ^should be more material at hand in cases of this kind, of the fossil as 

 well as of the existing species, to be compared with it. 



^ Generic name = Gr. 4>aais Phasis, Pheasant, and Sp. name = Alfhild, 

 'Christian name of Alfhild Dagny Shufeldt, wife of the author. 



