388 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 192 8 



The manner in which this pitch trap operated is seen in minor de- 

 posits that form to-day, as it is not unusual to find small mammals 

 or birds held fast in viscous asphalt seeps. Under careful explora- 

 tion the beds at Rancho La Brea have yielded bones to an aggregate 

 of many, many thousands, and have included very large numbers 

 of remains of birds. To the present time Loye Miller has published 

 identification of nearly 60 species, and there are unquestionably oth- 

 ers to come as the smaller forms, the passeriform or perching birds 

 in particular, have not yet been carefully studied. Two-fifths of the 

 forms from these deposits are extinct. Such scavengers as vultures, 

 which would be attracted to the bodies of dead animals, are repre- 

 sented in abundance, and include several extinct genera. Among 

 these the most curious is the great Teratornis TnerHami, which is 

 known from almost the complete skeleton, and represents the largest 

 of flying birds, exceeding in wing spread the modern condors (see pis, 

 10 and 11). Another species of great abundance was a gallinaceous 

 bird, Parapavo calif ornicus^ supposed at one time to be a peacock, 

 but noAv admitted as a species of turkey. The age of these deposits 

 is placed by Hay as first interglacial. 



Asphalt deposits of similar kind have been found recently near 

 McKittrick, and near Carpinteria, Calif., giving additional in- 

 formation on the distribution of the avifauna of California in the 

 Pleistocene, which, in its abundance of vultures and large hawks 

 and entire lack of gulls, offers a decided contrast to that of Oregon. 



Recent explorations in Florida, near Vero and Melbourne, in what 

 are supposed to be Pleistocene beds, have yielded remains of birds in 

 which are found the great stork known as the jabiru, and various 

 other species. Recently a valuable collection gathered by Mr. W. W. 

 Holmes near the west coast has come into my hands for study, and on 

 preliminary examination is found to contain a considerable variety 

 of species. Most remarkable is a broken metatarsal of a male turkey 

 with a trifid spur core that may represent an unknown species. 

 Multiple spurs are known among certain pheasants, but have not been 

 recorded among the gallinaceous birds of North America. The 

 Holmes collection when fully identified will add considerably to 

 knowledge of the ancient Floridian avifauna as it embraces the most 

 comprehensive series of species of birds that has been found fossil in 

 the eastern United States. 



Cave deposits that have been explored in California, Pennsyl- 

 vania, and Maryland, have contained remains of Pleistocene birds, 

 that need not be described in detail except to remark that caverns 

 offer a fertile field for investigation. 



In closing it may be said that the discovery of additional forms 

 in the Cretaceous is uncertain but that any obtained will be impor- 

 tant. At the present time only two types are well known from this 



