954 TELEOPTILE—TENUIROSTRES 
and in fact Archxopteryz (FOSSIL BirDs, p. 278) and the Cretaceous 
forms of North America (ODONTORNITHES, p. 649) had teeth. It is 
highly probable that Teeth were a more or less universal feature in 
all Birds of that period, that their loss took place at or shortly 
before the beginning of the Tertiary period, and moreover that 
their suppression was caused by the gradually increasing strength 
of the horny sheath of the jaws, asin Tortoises and in young 
Monotremes ; but it is not permissible to divide the Class Aves into 
Birds with Teeth (Odontornithes) and Birds without. In Hesperornis 
regalis there are 33 Teeth (p. 650) in each mandible and 14 in each 
maxilla, while the premaxilla is toothless and was probably 
covered with horn. All the Teeth stand in a groove (whence Prof. 
Marsh’s name Odontolcx), but bony processes between them indicate 
a future alveolar condition. Each Tooth is curved backward, con- 
tains a pulp-cavity, and consists of dentine with an enamel coating 
just as in the case of the normal Reptilian Tooth, and another truly 
Reptilian character is shewn by the succession of the Teeth, younger 
and still imperfect Teeth being found on the inner side of the base 
of the old or functional set. The Teeth of Jchthyornis are likewise 
restricted to the mandibles and maxille ; but they stand each ina 
separate socket or alveolus (whence the name Odontotormz is applied 
to this group of Birds), and the young or reserve Teeth are con- 
tained in the pulp cavity of the older set, growing from the same 
base just as in Crocodiles and in Mammals. The much more ancient 
and still more Reptilian Archexopteryx had few Teeth, and those but 
small. 
TELEOPTILE, see FEATHERS (p. 243). 
TELLTALE, the name long used in North America for Totanus 
melanoleucus and T. flavipes (SANDPIPER, p. 810) from “ their faith- 
ful vigilance in alarming the Ducks with their loud and shrill 
whistle on the first glimpse of the gunner’s approach,” and accord- 
ingly detested by him (Wilson, 4m. Orn. vii. p. 57).1 
TENDON, see under MuscuLar System (cf. 602-620). 
TENUIROSTRES, a French word used by Cuvier in 1805 
(Lee. @ Anat. Comp. tabl. 2) for a group of Passeres, containing the 
genera Sitta, Certhia, Trochilus, Upupa, Merops, Alcedo, and Todus ;? 
but its Latin application seems due to Illiger in 1811, who restricted 
it to the genera Nectarinia (SUN-BIRD), Tichodroma and Upupa 
1 For the same reason the RepsHANK, 7’. calidris, is known as Tolk (inter- 
preter) in Danish and Swedish (cf. TURNSTONE). 
2 In the following year Duméril (Zool. Analyt. pp. 46, 47, 64, 65, used the 
word (also as French) in a double sense—first almost precisely as Cuvier had 
done, but next for a group composed of Recurvirostra, Tringa, Charadrius, 
Numenius and Scolopax. 
