1912 | Miller: Pacific Coast Avian Palaeontology 65 
still inhabiting the region; thus their importance is limited to 
the evidence they furnish of the division of a genus into several 
coordinate species. 
In 1892, Shufeldt* published the results of an extended study 
of the Cope and the Condon collections of birds from this same 
region. In this very thorough discussion there are fifty species 
enumerated, fourteen of which are described as new. The entire 
number, with the exception of the gallinaceous Paleotetrix gilli, 
are assigned to existing genera. Phoenicopterus is the only 
existing genus recorded which is foreign to the region at present. 
In 1894, Cope* described a single species, Cyphornis magnus, 
from a formation in Vancouver, British Columbia, which he 
placed with some reservation in the Eocene, but which was later 
considered by others to be Oligocene. The species is considered 
as pelecanid in its affinities but generically distinct from any 
form now living. 
Lueas, in 1901,* described a new genus and species of diver, 
Mancalla californiensis, from a formation at Los Angeles, Cali- 
fornia. From the associated invertebrate fauna, this species is 
considered by Dall to be of upper Miocene or lower Pliocene age. 
As a result of the preliminary study put upon the University 
of California collections by the present writer, there have ap- 
peared a series of short papers dealing with a number of species 
from Fossil Lake, Oregon, and from the caverns and the asphalt 
beds of California. While these papers record one unique form, 
Teratornis, of unusual interest, the main value of the contribu- 
tions, like that of Shufeldt’s, les in the light shed upon the 
former distribution of families of birds still living.® 
2 Shufeldt, R. W., Journ. Acad. Nat. Sei. Phila., Ser. 2, No. 9, p. 389, 
1892, 
3 Cope, E. D., Journ. Acad. Nat. Sei. Phila., Ser. 2, No. 9, p. 449, 1894. 
4 Lucas, FP. A., Proc., U. S. Nat. Mus., vol. 24, p. 133, 1901. 
5 Miller, L. H., Univ. Calif. Publ., Bull. Dept. Geol., vols. 5-6 passim, 
1909-11. 
