28o 



FOSSIL BIRDS 



Reptilian featui-es which cannot he here noticed, few zoologists 

 since Sir R. Owen's description of the original specimen {Phil. Trans. 



1863, p. 33) have 

 hesitated to accept 

 Archxnj^teryx, as a 

 Bird ; but to suggest 

 anything of its more 

 immediate affinities 

 or habits were vain, 

 except that the form 

 of its feet indicates 

 a more or less ar- 

 boreal mode of life. 

 It is not easy to un- 

 derstand the use of 

 the singular tail, 



WiNO-BONEs OF Arch.coptervx. (After Vogt.) 



c, Carpus ; h, Humerus ; in, m, Metacarpals ; r, Radius ; 



u. Ulna; 1, 2, 3, first, second, and third Digits. 



which appears a clumsy appendage — a notion which is jierhaps 

 justified l)y the certainty that such tails had disappeared in the 

 birds next known to have existed.^ 



These belong to the Cretaceous epoch, and since (with the 

 exception of the Wealden) freshwater deposits of that age are rare 

 in Europe, true ornithic remains are there uncommon. Many bones 

 formerly referred to Birds have since proved to belong to Pterodac- 

 tyls, and among them Cimoliornis from the English Chalk, Cretornis 

 from that of Bohemia, and the so-called Palmirnis - of the Sussex 

 Wealden. But in 1858 Barrett discovered in the Upper Green- 

 sand of Cambridgeshire remains described by Professor Seeley in 

 1866 {Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 3, xviii. p. 100) under the 

 preoccupied name Pelagornis,^ bv;t in 1867 renamed Enaliornis 

 {Index to Aves and Bep. Camh. Mus.; Q. Journ. Geol. Soc. xxxii. 

 p. 509). These indicate a bird apjDarently allied to Colymhus, and 

 not improbably to Hesperornis, of which more presently. Prof. 

 Dames (A". Sv. Vet.-Akad. Handl. Bihang, xvi. pt. 4, No. 1) has 

 described some remains from the Chalk of Southern Sweden under 

 the name of Scaniornis, resembling those of Palmlodiis, to be again 

 mentioned. From the Cretaceous rocks of North America, a much 

 lai'ger number of Bird-fossils have been described by Prof. Marsh, 

 by whom they are referred to seven genera — Apatornis, Baptornis, 



^ Certain remains from the Upper Jurassic of Wyoming being regarded as 

 ornithic have received the name Laopteryx from Prof. Marsh (Am. Journ. Sci. 

 ser. 3, xxi. p. 341), but in the absence of full description and figures our judg- 

 ment may be suspended. 



^ Mantell, Medals of Creation, ed. 2, p. 804 (1844) — not to be confounded with 

 Paleeornis, Vigors, a Parrakeet — an(\ = Pterodadijlus c/ifti, Bronn, Ltd. Pal. p. 895. 



^ This name had already been given by Lartet {Comptes Pendns, 1857, p. 740) 

 to a different fossil noticed below. 



