86 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS 



almost for the first time, since the attempt of Blyth already mentioned,^ 

 brought to bear practically on Classification, as has been previously 

 hinted (Geographical Distribution, page 313); but, the subject being 

 treated elsewhere at some length, there is no need to enter upon it 

 here. 



Nevertheless it is necessary to mention here the intimate connexion 

 between Classification and Geographical Distribi;tion as revealed by the 

 palseontological researches of Prof. Alphonse Milne-Edwards, whose mag- 

 nificent Oiseaux Fossiles de la France began to appear in 1867, and was 

 completed in 1871 — the more so, since the exigencies of his undertaking 

 compelled him to use materials that had been almost wholly neglected 

 by other investigators. A large proportion of the fossil remains the 

 determination and description of which were his object were what are 

 commonly called the " long bones ", that is to say, those of the limbs. 

 The recognition of these, minute and fragmentary as many were, and the 

 referring them to their proper place, rendered necessary an attentive 

 study of the comparative osteology and myology of Birds in general, that 

 of the " long bones," whose sole characters were often a few muscular 

 ridges or depressions, being especially obligatory. Hence it became 

 manifest that a very respectable Classification can be found in which 

 characters drawn from these bones play a rather important part. Limited 

 by circumstances as is that followed by M. Milne-Edwards, the details of 

 his arrangement do not require setting forth here. It is enough to point 

 out that we have in his work another proof of the multiplicity of the 

 factors which must be taken into consideration by the systematist, and 

 another proof of the fallacy of trusting to one set of characters alone. 

 But this is not the only way in which the author has rendered service to 

 the advanced student of Ornithology, The unlooked-for discovery in 

 France of remains which he has referred to forms now existing it is 

 true, but existing only in countries far removed from Europe, forms such 

 as Collocalia, Leptosomus, Psittacus, Serpentarius and Trogon, is perhaps 

 even more suggestive than the finding that France was once inhabited by 

 forms that are wholly extinct, of which, as is elsewhere mentioned (Fossil 

 Birds, pages 284, 288), there is abundance in the older formations. Un- 

 fortunately none of these, for none is old enough, can be compared for 

 singularity with Archeeopteryz or with some American fossil forms next to 

 be noticed, for their particular bearing on our knowledge of Ornithology 

 will be most conveniently treated here. 



In November 1870 Prof. Marsh, by finding the imperfect fossilized 

 tibia of a Bird in the Middle Cretaceous shale of Kansas, began a series of 

 wonderful discoveries which will ever be associated with his name,^ and, 

 making us acquainted with a great number of forms long since vanished 



^ It is true that from the time of Buffon, though he scorned any regular Classifi- 

 cation, Geographical Distribution had been occasionally held to have something to do 

 with systematic arrangement ; but the way in which the two were related was never 

 clearly put forth, though people who could read between the lines might have guessed 

 the secret from Darwin's Journal of Researches, as well as from his introduction to 

 the Zoology of the ' Beagle ' Voyage. 



2 It will of course be needless to remind the general zoologist of Prof. Marsh's no 

 less wonderful discoveries of wholly unlooked-for types of Reptiles and Mammals. 



