bh BY-WAYVS AND BIRD-NOTES. 
low order of birds; but, on the other hand, 
perfectly formed wings and a well-keeled séer- 
num are the salients of the highest bird-develop- 
ment, and /chthyornis had these, despite its 
teeth and fishy vertebra. I venture to suspect 
that if a fairly preserved fossil skeleton, includ- 
ing the bill, of a poll parrot could be found in 
any of the mesozoic formations, no scientist 
would be able, without any knowledge of the 
parrot family save what the fossil afforded, to 
discover the bird’s curious vocal gifts. 
The perching feet of Archaeopteryx would 
give it a leading characteristic of the fasseres, 
and it may have had the syrimx of the oscznes, 
despite its vertebrate, lizard-like tail; and so, 
too, /chthyornis, notwithstanding its reptile 
jaws and teeth and its bi-concave vertebre, 
may have been able to sing divinely. It was 
a small bird, scarcely larger than a pigeon, 
with a skeleton closely similar to those of the 
highest ornithological types, saving the ¢eeth and 
bi-concave vertebre ; and who shall dispute that 
such a creature might have made the woods 
ring with its voice. ‘True, it has been thought 
an aquatic bird, simply because the formation 
in which its remains rested is of marine ori- 
gin, and on account of its teeth. There have 
been great changes, great progress and great 
retrogression, since the middle cretaceous pe- 
riod; but my suggestion is complete without 
knowing or caring about the voice of /chthy- 
ornis. I have traced bird-song back into the 
mesozoic age, and have set the music of the 
rocks to ringing in the ears of my imaginative 
readers. If, as embryology appears to teach, 
the birds have come through the fish and rep- 
tile forms to their present beautiful state, by 
