1094 SYSTEMATIC SYNOPSIS OF FOSSIL BIRDS. 



GRACULAVUS VELOX. 



Graculavus velox Marsh, Ain. Journ. Sci. iii, May, 1872, p. 363. — Id. ibid, v, Mar. 

 1873, p. 229. — Id. Odont. 1880, p. 194. — Coues, Key, 1872, p. 349. 



A bird about two-thirds as large as a Cormorant. The remains were found in the green- 

 sand of the middle marl bed, or upper Cretaceous, near Hornerstown, New Jersey, and are all 

 preserved in the Museum of Yale College. 

 GRACULAVUS PU3IILUS. 



Graculavus pumiliis Marsh, Am. Journ. Sci. iii. May, 1872, p. 364. — Id. ihid. v, Mar. 

 1873, p. 229. — Id. Odont. 1880, p. 195. — Coues, Key, 1872, p. 350. 



A smaller species than the foregoing, from the same formation and locality. Remains 

 also in the Yale Museum. 



Note. Several western species, provisionally referred to the genus Graculavus, have 

 since been identified with Ichthyornis, which see. 

 HESPERORNIS REGALIS. (See p. 63, fig. 15.) 



Hesperornis regalis Marsh, Am. Journ. Sci. iii, Jan. 1872, p. 56. — Id. ibid, iii. May, 

 1872, p. 360. — Id. ibid, x, Nov. 1875, p. 403. — Id. ibid, xiv, July, 1877, p. 85, pi. v. — 

 Id. Am. Nat. ix, Dec. 1875, p. 625. — Id. Geol. Mag. iii, Feb. 1876, p. 49, pi. ii. — Id. 

 Odont. 1880, pp. 1-117, p. 195, pis. i-xx. — Coues, Key, 1872, p. 195. — Woodw. Pop. Sci. 

 Rev. Oct. 1875, p. 337. — Seeley, Journ. Geol. Soc. xxxii, 1876, p. 510. — Huxl. Pop. 

 Sci. Monthly, x, 1876, pp. 215-218. — YoGT, Revue Scient. xvii, 1879, p. 247. — Dana, Man. 

 Geol. 1880, pi. iv. 



Reference to p. 244, antea, will show the essential characters of Odontolcce, of which the 

 present species is a type. Hesperornis may be tersely characterized as a gigantic diver, some 

 six feet in length from the point of the bill to the end of the toes, standing over three feet high 

 in the position represented in the above-cited figure. "While the general configuration of the 

 skeleton may be likened to that of a Loon, the conformation of the sternum is ratite, and the 

 wings are rudimentary or abortive, only a remnant of a humerus being left ; other struthious 

 characters are noted in various parts of the skeleton ; the jaws are long and furnished with 

 sharp recurved teeth implanted in grooves, but the vertebrae are heteroccelous, or saddle-shaped, 

 and the coccyx is short, as in ordinary birds ; most of these characters separating this odontol- 

 cons type sharply from both Odontotortme and SaururcB. Comparison of the three Mesozoic 

 genera, Hesperornis, Ichthyornis, and Archccopteryx, shows greater diversity from one another 

 than that existing among all known birds of later geologic and of the present epoch. 



The first remains of this now famous species were found by Professor Marsh in November, 

 1870, in the yellow chalk of the Pteranodon beds, near the Smoky Hill River in Kansas. The 

 type specimen was found in July, 1871, on the south bank of the same river, about twenty 

 miles east of Fort Wallace, imbedded in gray calcareous shale. Many other remains have 

 also been collected, representing in all some 40 different individuals, all from the same geologic 

 horizon in western Kansas, and most of them near the locality of the original ones. They are 

 all preserved in the Museum of Yale College. 

 HESPERORNIS CRASSIPES. 



Lestornis crassipes Marsh, Am. Journ. Sci. xi, June, 1876, p. 509. 



Hesperornis crassipes Marsh, Odont. 1880, p. 196, figs. 40 a-d, pis. vii, xvii. 



Based upon a nearly complete skeleton from the yellow chalk of western Kansas, indi. 

 eating a bird considerably larger than H. regalis, and one that may prove to be generically 

 distinct. Deposited in the Yale Museum. 

 HESPERORNIS GRACILIS. 



Hesperornis gracilis Marsh, Am. Journ, Sci. xi, June, 1876, \). 510. — Id. Odont. 1880, 

 pp. 99, 197. 



A third species, from the same horizon and locality, represented by two specimens, one ot 

 them a nearly complete skeleton. Deposited in the Yale Museum. 



