278 FOSSLE BIRDS 
animal, its footprint measuring nearly 17 inches in length and its 
stride some 8 feet. 
An enormous space of time separates these reputed Ornithich- 
nites, as they are called, from the first undoubted fossil Bird. This 
~made Khewn Pes . . . 
was discovered in 1861 by Andreas Wagner in the lithographic 
slate of Solenhofen in Bavaria, belonging to the Jurassic system, and 
is commonly known by the name of Archwopterya,' though that of 
Gryphosaurus was given by him to the original specimen now in the 
SLAB WITH REMAINS OF ARCHAOPTERYX, from the original in the British Museum. Reduced. 
British Museum, which remained unique until 1877, when a second, 
now in the Museum of Berlin,? was found in the same locality.” Since 
1 Hermann von Meyer had previously described a fossil feather from the 
same formation, to the owner of which he gave this name. Its specific, generic, 
not to say ordinal, identity with the creature whose remains were subsequently 
found is of course problematical, but the received laws of nomenclature fully 
justify the common usage. 
2 W. Dames, Ueber Archxopteryx (Pal. Abhandl. Band. ii. Heft 3), Berlin: 
1884; and Geol. Mag. 1884, p. 410. 
° Future investigations may shew that the two specimens belong to distinct 
species if not genera (cf. Seeley, Geol. May. 1881, p. 454). 
