526 Letters, Announcements, ^c. 



passage advocates the view that genera so diverse as Chara- 

 drius, Tringa, Scolopax, Totanus, Himantopus, and Numenius 

 (andj I suppose_, Cursorius and Glareola) have all originated 

 from one ancestral type since the middle of the Pleistocene 

 period. Mr. Seebohm has evidently overlooked the palaeonto- 

 logical evidence that exists, and a brief notice of this may be 

 of interest to readers of ' The Ibis.^ 



It is true that our knowledge of fossil birds is very limited ; 

 but still something has been ascertained, and an exhaustive 

 account of the information obtained up to 1871 is given by 

 our eminent foreign member M, Alphonse Mihie-Edwards in 

 his ' Recherches Anatomiques et Paleontologiqnes pour 

 servir a I'histoire des Oiseaux Fossiles de la France/' In 

 this work (see ^Tlie Ibis/ 1869, p. 219) species of Numenius, 

 Tringa, and Totanus, besides a form called Elorius, and, 

 above all, a true Himantopus, are described from Miocene 

 beds. A bird, referred with doubt to Numenius {N. gyp- 

 sorum?),is described from the Eocene ; but this, although un- 

 doubtedly Charadrian, was a somewhat generalized form 

 intermediate between Curlews and Godwits. In America a 

 genus named Palieotritiga, probably Charadrian, but of which 

 the affinities are doubtful, has been found in Cretaceous beds. 

 Neglecting the older types, it is manifest that, so far from 

 all the genera of Charadriidse having originated towards the 

 end of the Glacial epoch, several of the best marked existed 

 in the far more ancient Miocene period. 



In caise some ornithologists should not be familiar with the 

 relative importance of the geological terms used, I may per- 

 haps be allowed to show how very great the difference is. 

 Omitting all disputed terms, four principal divisions of geo- 

 logical time are usually recognized subsequent to the com- 

 mencement of the Tertiary era ; these are, commencing from 

 the earliest :— Eocene, Miocene, Pliocene, and Pleistocene. 

 But these divisions, judging by the changes that took place 

 in the fauna within the limits of each — by far the best test 

 — were by no means of equal duration. Eocene must have 

 been nearly equal to the Miocene and Pliocene together, 

 whilst each of the latter greatly exceeded the Pleistocene. 



