56 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS 
almost for the first time, since the attempt of Blyth already. mentioned,! 
brought to bear practically on Classification, as has been previously 
hinted (GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION, page 313); but, the subject being 
treated elsewhere at some length, there is no need to enter upon it 
here, 
Nevertheless it is necessary to mention here the intimate connexion 
between Classification and Geographical Distribution as revealed by the 
~ paleontological researches of Prof. Alphonse Milne-Edwards, whose mag- 
nificent Oiseaux Fossiles de la France began to appear in 1867, and was 
completed in 1871—the more so, since the exigencies of his undertaking 
compelled him to use materials that had been almost wholly neglected 
by other investigators. A large proportion of the fossil remains the 
determination and description of which were his object were what are 
commonly called the “long bones”, that is to say, those of the limbs. 
The recognition of these, minute and fragmentary as many were, and the 
referring them to their proper place, rendered necessary an attentive 
study of the comparative osteology and myology of Birds in general, that 
of the “long bones,” whose sole characters were often a few muscular 
ridges or depressions, being especially obligatory. Hence it became 
manifest that a very respectable Classification can be found in which 
characters drawn from these bones play a rather important part. Limited 
by circumstances as is that followed by M. Milne-Edwards, the details of 
his arrangement do not require setting forth here. It is enough to point 
out that we have in his work another proof of the multiplicity of the 
factors which must be taken into consideration by the systematist, and 
another proof of the fallacy of trusting to one set of characters alone. 
But this is not the only way in which the author has rendered service to 
the advanced student of Ornithology. The unlooked-for discovery in 
France of remains which he has referred to forms now existing it is 
true, but existing only in countries far removed from Europe, forms such 
as Collacalia, Leptosomus, Psittacus, Serpentarius and Trogon, is perhaps 
even more suggestive than the finding that France was once inhabited by 
forms that are wholly extinct, of which, as is elsewhere mentioned (Foss1n 
Brrps, pages 284, 288), there is abundance in the older formations. Un- 
fortunately none of these, for none is old enough, can be compared for 
singularity with Archxopteryx or with some American fossil forms next to 
be noticed, for their particular bearing on our knowledge of Ornithology 
will be most conveniently treated here. 
In November 1870 Prof. Marsh, by finding the imperfect fossilized 
tibia of a Bird in the Middle Cretaceous shale of Kansas, began a series of 
wonderful discoveries which will ever be associated with his name,? and, 
making us acquainted with a great number of forms long since vanished 
1 It is true that from the time of Buffon, though he scorned any regular Classifi- 
cation, Geographical Distribution had been occasionally held to have something to do 
with systematic arrangement ; but the way in which the two were related was never 
clearly put forth, though people who could read between the lines might have guessed 
the secret from Darwin’s Journal of Researches, as well as from his introduction to 
the Zoology of the ‘ Beagle’ Voyage. 
? It will of course be needless to remind the general zoologist of Prof. Marsh’s no 
less wonderful discoveries of wholly unlooked-for types of Reptiles and Mammals. 
