Fossil Birds in the Marsh Collection of Yale University 27 



Telmatornis affinis Marsh. 

 {Plate VI, Fig. 36.) 



Marsh, Amer. Joum. Sci., ser. 2, XLIX, 1870, 211. 



Holotype. Cat. No. 845, Peabody Museum, Yale University. Homerstown, 

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



Here we have another distal end of a fossil humerus, with consid- 

 erabty less shaft preserved than in the case of T. priscus. It belonged 

 to the skeleton of a bird of the same kind, the characters presented 

 being essentially identical. Being but a trifle smaller than the other, this 

 difference in size may have been due to either sex or age, or possibly 

 to both, inasmuch as the two fragments are alike in all respects with 

 the exception of size. Were this latter difference constant and not 

 due to age or sex, then these fragments represent two good species of 

 the same genus. This, however, is a matter not at all likely to ever 

 be settled, as such fossil material is, at the best, extremely rare, and 

 our knowledge of extinct birds of the New Jersey Cretaceous extremely 

 limited. 



Telmatornis rex sp. nov. 

 (Plate XIII, Fig. 101.) 



Cotypes. Cat. Nos. 902, 948, Peabody Museum, Yale University. Honiers- 

 to\vn. New Jersey. Cretaceous. W. Ross, J. G. Meirs, collectors. 



This species is established on a fossil right humerus which lacks the 

 proximal end. Its distal end agrees with Telmatornis priscus Marsh, 

 but belonged to a species considerably larger than this, and still 

 larger than T. affinis. So perfect is the present specimen, however, 

 that we gain from it the form of the humerus as a whole, and it would 

 appear that we have no existing birds in this country possessing a 

 humerus like it. Its distal end is very much expanded, or rather 

 compressed transversely, with a general concavity in front of the 

 articular tubercles, as we often see in the humeri of birds. On the 

 whole, the bone is a short one, the shaft small and somewhat com- 

 pressed transversely, and its sigmoid curve very pronounced. 



It is most unfortunate that the proximal end of this bone was lost; 

 for had the specimen been perfect it would have been possible to come 

 much nearer the truth in making a reference. 



I am inclined to think that the genus contained numerous species, 

 and that these varied in size, much as the Rails now do in our avi- 

 fauna; and, associated as they are with the Crakes, GaUinules and 

 Coots, it is quite possible that, in Cretaceous time on the Atlantic 



