AYES 289 



made public the fact, based on scientific comparison, and sub- 

 mitted to the geological world his interpretations of those 

 impressions as having been produced by the feet of living 

 birds, and he gave them the name of Omithichnitcs. 



It was a startling announcement, and a conclusion that 

 must have had strong evidence to support it, since one of the 

 kinds of the tracks had been made by a pair of feet, each 

 leaving a print 20 inches in length. Under the term Omi- 

 thichnif.es giganteus, however, Dr. Hitchcock did not shrink 

 from proclaiming the fact of the existence, during the period 

 of the deposition of the red sandstones of the valley of the 

 Connecticut, of a bird which must have been at least four 

 times larger than the ostrich* The impressions succeeded 

 each other at regular intervals ; they were of two kinds, but 

 differing only as a right and left foot, and alternating with 

 each other, the left foot a little to the left, and the right foot 

 a little to the right, of the mid-line between a series of tracks. 

 Each footprint (fig. 84, b and ?•) exhibits three toes, diverging 

 as they extend forwards. The distance between the tips of 

 the inside and outside toes of the same foot was 12 inches. 

 Each toe was terminated by a short strong claw projecting 

 from the mid toe a little on the inner side of its axis, from 

 the other two toes a little on the outer side of theirs. The 

 end of the metatarsal bone to which those toes were articulated 

 rested on a two-lobed cushion which sloped upwards behind. 

 The inner toe (r) showed distinctly two phalangeal divisions, 

 the middle toe three, the outer toe (b) four. And since, in 

 living birds, the penultimate and ungual phalanges usually 

 leave only a single impression, the inference was just, that 

 the toes of this large foot had been characterized by the same 

 progressively-increasing number of phalanges, from the inner 

 to the outer one, as in birds. And, as in birds also, the toe 

 with the greatest number of joints was not the longest ; it 



* American Journal (if Science for 183G, vol. xxix., pi. i. 

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