INTRODUCTION ST 
hands. The great fault of his series of memoirs, if it may be allowed the 
present writer to criticize them, is the indifference of their author to for- 
mulating his views, so as to enable the ordinary taxonomer to perceive 
how far he has got, if not to present him with a fair scheme. But this 
fault is possibly one of those that are “to merit near allied,” since it 
would seem to spring from the author’s hesitation to pass from observation 
to theory, for to theory at present belong, and must for some time belong, 
all attempts at Classification. Still it is not the less annoying and dis. 
appointing to the systematist to find that the man whose life-long 
application would have enabled him, better than any one else, to declare 
the effect of the alliances and differences shewn to exist among 
various members of the Class, should yet have been so reticent, or that 
when he spoke he should rather use the language of Morphology, which 
those who are not morphologists find difficult of correct interpretation, 
and wholly inadequate to allow of zoological deductions.! 
For some time past rumours of a discovery of the highest interest had 
been agitating the minds of zoologists, for in 1861 Andreas Wagner had 
sent to the Academy of Sciences of Munich (Sitzwngsber. pp. 146-154 ; 
Ann. Nat, Hist. ser. 3, ix. pp. 261-267) an account of what he conceived 
to be a feathered Reptile (assigning to it the name Griphosaurus), the 
remains of which had been found in the lithographic beds of Solenhofen ; 
but he himself, through failing health, had been unable to see the fossil. 
In 1862 the slabs containing the remains were acquired by the British 
Museum, and towards the end of that year Owen communicated a detailed 
description of them to the Royal Society (Philos. Trans. 1863, pp. 33-47), 
proving their Bird-like nature, and referring them to the genus Archeopteryx 
of Hermann von Meyer, hitherto known only by the impression of a 
single feather from the same geological beds. Wagner foresaw the use 
that would be made of this discovery by the adherents of the new 
Philosophy,. and, in the usual language of its opponents at the time, 
strove to ward off the “ misinterpretations” that they would put upon it. 
His protest, it is needless to say, was unavailing, and all who respect his 
memory must regret that the sunset of life failed to give him that insight 
into the future which is poetically ascribed to it. To Darwin and those 
who believed with him scarcely any discovery could have been more 
welcome ; but that is beside our present business. It was quickly seen 
—even by those who held Archzopteryx to be a Reptile—that it was a 
form intermediate between existing Birds and existing Reptiles—while 
those who were convinced by Owen’s researches of its ornithic affinity saw 
that it must belong to a type of Birds wholly unknown before, and one 
that in any future arrangement of the Class must have a special rank 
reserved for it It is elsewhere briefly described and figured in this 
work (Fossin Brrps, pages 278-280). 
1 As an instance, take the passages in which Turnix and Thinocorys ave apparently 
referred (Trans. Zool. Soc. ix. pp. 291 et seqg.; and Encycl. Brit. ed. 9, iii. p. 700) to 
the digithognathx, a view which, as shewn by the author (Zrans. x. p. 310), is not 
rae really intended by him. 
2 This was done in 1866 by Prof. Hiickel, who (Gon Morphol. ii. pp. Xi., eXxXxix.- 
exli.) proposed the name SauRIUR# for the group containing it. 
3 It behoves us to mention the ‘Outlines of a Systematic Review of the Class of 
