378 ZOOLOGY. 



-32) ; J. Gould's " Birds of New Guiuea aud adjacent Papuan Islands," 

 &c. (parts 9-11) ; V. Legge's " History of the Birds of Ceylon " (part3) ; 

 T. Salvadori's, " Prodromus Oruitliologioi Papnasice et Moluccarum 

 (parts G-9). 



Of families are : D. G. Elliot's " Monograph of the Bucerotidse, or 

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

 chilidae, or Humming Birds" (part 1); P. L. Sclater's " Monograph of 

 the Jacamars and Pufif-Birds, or families Galbulidge and Bucconida3 " 

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

 Sun-Birds" (parts 7- ). 



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

 d'Histoire Naturelle des Pays-Bas" (tome 8, including Tinamids and 

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

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

 pidfe "). 



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 

 jjrovided 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 provided with feathers on the lateral 

 edges, thus contrasting remarkably with the abbreviated concentrated 

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

 {Arch(copteryx) also differed in so manj^ respects from the typical birds, 

 and on the other hand approached the rei)tiles, that even recently the 

 opinion has been expressed by an eminent naturalist, Carl Vogt, 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 Archwopteri/x, but which, nevertheless, 

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

 types. 



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

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

 imjilanted in regular disconnected sockets and i)artly 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. ). Odontoi nithes : A Mouograph on the Extinct 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 Odontornithes, 

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

 pp. 25;')-27G. April, 1881. 



I 



