174 BY-WAYS AND BIRD-NOTES. 
and we shall begin to wonder how so many re- 
mains of so-called aquatic birds found their 
way into the middle cretaceous beds of Kansas 
and Texas. Surely there must have been 
myriads of birds in those days, else nature had 
a better way then than now of taking her 
dead into her bosom ? 
The lower tertiary rocks of Wyoming Terri- 
tory have given up an ancient woodpecker, 
Uintornis lucaris, a small species, not larger 
than our flicker. Heit was who drummed on 
the dead trees in the lonely places of the woods 
ages before the first germ that foreshadowed 
man was forming under the smile of God. 
Many of the ancient aquatic birds may have 
built their nests in burrows, as our kingfishers 
do, and various accidents may have shut them 
up forever in their dens. It can be under- 
stood how the belted halcyon of to-day might 
be hermetically sealed in his burrow by the 
earth falling in upon him. Still I have heard 
of but a single bone-fragment (amongst ail the 
fossil remains of birds) that has been referred 
to the kingfisher, which argues that Halcyon 
is a new bird in comparison with others exist- 
ing at this time, or else we have not yet 
chanced to cut into the banks of the old, old 
brooks where he used to dig out the burrow 
for his nest. 
What have been called sub-fossil remains 
furnish us a number of giant birds from the 
sands of Madagascar and from New Zealand. 
So also the peat-bogs and fens hold the bones 
of rare or extinct species, principally herons 
and bitterns. 
Since we have been forced to study orni- 
thology backwards, we may be said to have 
