36 



VERTEBRATA. 



No. 51. [1278] Archseopteryx macrura, Owen. 



Skeleton (cast). This, the earliest 

 specimen of bird remains, was found 

 in 1861 in the Jurassic lithographic 

 limestone at Solenhofen, Germany. 

 It is of the greatest interest, not 

 only on account of its great antiquity, 

 but because of its remarkable rep- 

 tilian character. In the general con- 

 struction of the skeleton, the struc- 

 ture of the legs and feet, and in the 

 possession of feathers, the Arcliiwp- 

 teryx was distinctively avian ; but it 

 had the long jointed tail, separate 

 fingers and toothed jaws of a reptile. 

 The creature was about the size of 

 a crow. The tail, instead of con- 

 sisting of some seven shortened ver- 

 tebrae, with radiating feathers, had 

 twenty movable vertebrae, with a 

 pair of feathers for each joint, and 

 exceeded the body in length. The 

 hand of living birds consist of three digits, the first one, or thumb, being dis- 

 tinct, the second and third being consolidated, and all being used to support 

 the feathers. The hand of the Arclmopteryx had three digits, all of them 

 being free and bearing claws. The teeth were conical, and probably borne in 

 sockets in the elongated jaws. The vertebrae were bi-concave. (Marsh). 



Another specimen of this species was found in 1877, in the same strata, and 

 is preserved in the Berlin Museum. A fragment of another is in the possession 

 of the Museum of the University of Munich. The original of the specimen 

 is in the British Museum. Size, 18 x 34. 



No. 52. 



Odontopteryx toliapicus, Owen. 



Portion of Head (ca.st). From the 

 London clay of the Isle of Sheppey 

 (Lower Eocene). In this early bird the 

 dentition is intermediate between the 

 reptilian toothed birds of tlie Jurassic 

 and Cretaceous, and the differentiated 

 species now existing, consisting only of 

 serrations of the bony edges of the beak. Original in the British Museum. 



No. 53. Dinomis (Meionornis) casuariniis, Owen. 



Femur, Tibia and Tarso-Metatarsus. This genus of strange gigantic 

 birds was founded by Owen in 1839, upon a fragment of a femur, brought 

 from New Zealand. The form of this bone, and its peculiar cancellated inner 

 structure, led him to refer it to the order Cursores, and to the family of Struthi- 



