FOR T Y-SPO T— FOSSIL BIRDS 



'-77 



Henicurus. (After Swainson.) 



Cindus (Water-OuSEL), and Dr. Sharpe, as usual in similar cases 

 of difficulty, has put it {Cat. 

 B. Br. Mus. vii. p. 312) among 

 the TimeliidcB, making two 

 other genera, Hydrocichla and 

 Mkrocichla. These are adopted 

 by Mr. Gates, who {Faun. Br. 

 Ind. Birds, ii. p. 81) refers all 

 to the Ruticilline group (Red- 

 start) of Turdklx. With but 

 few exceptions their plumage 

 is wholly black and white ; 

 and, save in Mkrocichla, the forked tail which is constantly in 

 motion is a marked characteristic. These birds are found along 

 the whole of the Himalayan range and its eastward extensions to 

 China in the north, and further south in the mountains of the 

 Malay Peninsula, Java, Sumatra, and Borneo. They form, says 

 Mr. Elwes {Ibis, 1872, p. 251) "a conspicuous feature in Himalayan 

 scenery, being usually found either singly or in pairs flitting from 

 rock to rock by the side of the most rapid torrents." They are 

 said to build a large nest, placed under a stone or fallen tree close 

 to the Avater, and their eggs are of a dull greenish-white freckled 

 with rusty brown. 



FORTY-SPOT, the name in Tasmania, to which the species is 

 peculiar, of Pardalotus quadraginta (Diamond-Bird). 



FOSSIL BIRDS.^ Footprints or casts of footprints, at the time of 

 their discovery and long afterwards, supposed to be those of Birds, were 

 found about the year 1835 in the Triassic sandstone of the valley 

 of the Connecticut in Xew England, and were described by Messrs.^ 

 Deane and Marsh. Subsequently Prof. Hitchcock and Mr. Warren 

 contributed to the elucidation of these tracks, which were ascribed 

 to various genera of the Class that received the names of Amhlony.r, 

 Argozo'um, Brontozoum, GraUator, Ornithopus, Flatypterna, Tridentipes, 

 and others. No portion of any of the animals to which these traces- ^ 

 are due seems to have been met Avith,^ and most American palae- 

 ontologists are now inclined to attribute them rather to Dinosaurian 

 Reptiles than to Birds. Whatever may be thought of the rest, it 

 appears that the creatures designated as Platijpterna and Trulcntipes 

 were certainly not ornithic. Brontozoum must have been a colossal 



' I am obliged to my friend j\Ir. Lydekker for this article, which, though 

 founded upon one that ajipeared in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, has been by 

 him so entirely remodelled, that he may be considered its sole author. — A. X. 



- The onl}' known bones from this deposit were exhibited by Prof. AV. B. / 

 Rogers at the lirst meeting of the British Association in Bath {Rep. Br. Ass. 

 1864, Trans. Sect. p. 66). 



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