ANCESTORS OF BIRDS. 3 



It is unnecessary to discuss here the relationships of the 

 birdhke reptiles, but, as the most convincing argument 

 in support of the theory of the reptilian descent of birds, 

 I present a restoration of the Archaeopteryx, the earliest 

 known progenitor of the class Aves. This restoration is 



Fig. 1.— Restoration of the Archasopteryx, a toothed, reptilelike bird of the 

 Jurassic period. (About '/s natural size.) 



based on an examination of previous restorations in con- 

 nection with a study of the excellent plates which have 

 been published of the fossils themselves.* Two speci- 

 mens have been discovered ; one being now in the British 

 Museum, the other in the Berlin Museum. They were 

 both found in the lithographic slates of Solenhofen, in 

 Bavaria, a formation of the Jurassic period, and, together, 

 furnish the more important details of the structure of this 

 reptilelike bird. 



This restoration, therefore, while doubtless inaccurate 



* For recent papers on the Archaeopteryx 

 (Macmillan Co.), vols, v-viii. 



Natural Science 



