Animals Before Mem 



birds of to-day bear about them some hints of 

 descent from far-off ancestors that flew, while 

 the very earliest birds known to us were birds 

 of flight. It has indeed been suggested by 

 some naturalists that Archseopteryx merely flut- 

 tered, and sailed from branch to branch, but 

 the general opinion is that the creature flew 

 fairly vyell. 



The whole of the 15,000 living birds trace 

 their pedigree back to the two specimens of 

 Ai^chseopteryx from the Jurassic rocks ^ of So- 

 lenhofen; but while this pedigree is long in 

 point of time, it is short in material, for the 

 reason that the links connecting the past with 

 the present are lacking, still buried somewhere 

 in the bosom of the earth. Moreover, as Ar- 

 chseopteryx had large and perfectly developed 

 feathers and a thoroughly bird-like leg, we 

 naturally exj^ect to find back of him some 

 animals of a much more reptilian ty23e and 

 mth fore limbs less like wings. These fore- 



* The theory has been advanced that birds have been derived 

 from at least two sources; and while it seems improbable that 

 such structures as feathers should have originated twice, there are 

 some reasons why this may have taken place. 



178 



