378 ZOOLOGY. 



-32) ; J. Gould's " Birds of Xew Guinea and adjacent Papuan Islands," 

 &c. (parts 9-11) ; V. Legge's " History of tbe Birds of Ceylon " (part 3) ; 

 T. Salvadori's, " Prodromus Ornitliologife Papuasise et Moluccaruni 

 (parts 6-9). 



Of families are : D. G. Elliot's " Monograph of tlie Bucerotida^, or 

 family of Hornbills (parts 7-8) ; J. Gould's " Supplement to the Tro- 

 chilidfe, or Humming Birds" (parti); P. L. Sclater's "Monograph of 

 the Jacamars and Puft-Birds, or families GalbulidiB and Bucconidae" 

 (part 4); G. E. Shelley's "Monograph of the Ciunyridte, or family of 

 Sun-Birds" (parts 7- ). 



And of continuations of general works are : H. Schlegel's " Museum 

 d'Histoire i!«raturelle des Pays-Bas" (tome 8, including Tinamids and 

 Megapodids); E. Bowdler Sharpe's "Catalogue of the Birds of the 

 British Museum" (vol. 4, containing the "Campophagidse and Muscica- 

 pidse "). 



THE ODONTORNITHES, OR TOOTHED, BIRDS.* 



Perhaps the most trenchant ideas associated in our minds with birds 

 relate to the development of the feathers, the insertion of the tail in a 

 fan-like manner, and a bill destitute of true teeth, although frequently 

 l)rovided with serrations or special odontoid enlargements of the cutting 

 edges. In the Cretaceous period, however, there must have existed many 

 forms possessing characters in which they resembled reptiles rather than 

 living birds. One of those types, as is now generally known, was distin- 

 guished by the development of numerous caudal vertebrae of elongated 

 form, extended backwards, and iirovided with feathers on the lateral 

 edges, thus contrasting remarkably with the abbreviated concentrated 

 coccyx and radiate feathers of the living forms. This ancient type 

 {Arclucopteryx) also differed in so many respects from the typical birds, 

 and on the other hand approached the reptiles, that even recently the 

 opinion has been expressed by an eminent naturalist, Carl Yogt, that it 

 was really a reptile rather than a bird. This form appears also to have 

 been provided with well-developed teeth, although the exact characters 

 of those teeth remain yet to be elucidated. In America there existed 

 at nearly the same period forms which, in most respects, approached the 

 typical birds more than did the Archcvopteryx, but which, nevertheless, 

 were distinguished by well marked characters. There were two of these 

 types. 



In one form the vertebrni were biconcave, (thus resembling those of 

 fishes and the Gecko lizards,) and the teeth were well developed and 

 implanted in regular disconnected sockets and ijartlj' shed and replaced 

 by others of later growth. The species possessing these characters, so 

 far as they have come to light, had also large wing bones, and the meta- 



* Marsh, (O. C.)- Odontoruithes : AMouograpli on tlieExtinct Toothed Birds of North 

 America, with thirty-four plates and forty wood-cuts. Washington, Government 

 Printing Office, 1880. 4to, pp. i-xv, 201. Also, A Monograph on the Odontoruithes, 

 or Toothed Birds of North America. By Prof. Marsh. Am. Jour. Science (3) vol. xxi, 

 pp. 255-276. April, 1881. 



