97 
January 26th, 1874. 
PRESIDENT NEWBERRY in the chair. ‘Twelve persons present. 
A number of specimens were exhibited and discussed by 
members. 
Pror. D. S. MArtiIN remarked upon Prof. Owen’s new 
Kocene bird from the Isle of Sheppey, Odontopteryx toliapicus, 
and pointed out its peculiar relation, or non-relation, 
to certain other forms. The so-called dentirostral birds of 
the present age have merely one or more serrations or denti- 
culations on the edge of the horny sheath or casing of the 
beak, and not on the bony beak itself. This fact Prof. Owen 
refers to in his description. If now we go back to the Creta- 
ceous period, we find in Prof. Marsh’s Icthyornis, discovered 
last year in Kansas, a bird with numerous true teeth, inserted 
in well-defined sockets. Prof. Owen’s bird belongs to an 
intermediate age, and presents at first sight an intermediate 
character, between IJcthyornis and the modern Dentirostres; 
that is, it has a series of tooth-like processes extending from 
the jaw-bones proper, and which in Prof. Owen’s view, were 
originally sheathed all over with horn, like the bill in living 
birds. But this intermediate character is, after all, only 
apparent, and has no structural relation, although it seems to 
simulate a connection. The bony projections on the bill of 
Odontopteryx have no homology with true teeth, such as those 
of Icthyornis. A really intervening form, between the last- 
named type and the toothless birds of our own day, would 
possess only rudimentary teeth imbedded in the jaws, some- 
what as in young whales; and the “ gradual change,” were such 
to be found, would appear in a progressive diminution in the 
number of teeth, and in the efficiency of their character, until 
all became rudimentary, and even these finally obsolete. 
Instead of this, we have in Odontopterye a marked and 
peculiar form, well-developed, and seemingly out of relation 
to anything else, either earlier or later; though affording a 
curious semblance of relationship. A careless Darwinist 
