BIRDS. 253 



impressions of a mucli smaller anterior pair of feet. Others 

 of the impressions are four-toed, and must certainly have 

 been formed by Eeptiles ; while the bones of Deinosaurs 

 have actually been found in the same beds. Putting these 

 facts together with the strong probability that the Deino- 

 saurs in some cases temporarily or permanently adopted a 

 bipedal mode of progression, it seems tolerably certain that 

 most of the footprints of the Connecticut Trias were pro- 

 duced by Eeptiles, though there still remains the possibility 

 that some are ornithic. 



The size and other characters of the above-mentioned im- 

 pressions vary much, and they have certainly been produced 

 by several different animals. In the largest hitherto discov- 

 ered, each footprint is twenty-two inches long, and twelve 

 inches wide, showing that the feet were four times as large 

 as those of the African Ostrich. The animal, therefore, 

 which produced these impressions — whether Avian or Rep- 

 tilian — must have been of gigantic size. 



The first unmistakable remains of a bird have been found 

 in the Solenhofen Slates of Bavaria, of the age of the Upper 

 Oolites. A single unique specimen, consisting of bones and 

 feathers, but unfortunately without the skull, is all that has 

 hitherto been discovered ; and it has been named the Archmo- 

 fUryx macrura. A second specimen found quite recently 

 has not yet been described. The characters of this singular 

 and aberrant bird, which alone constitutes the order Sam-urce, 

 will be shortly given, and need not be repeated here. 



In the Cretaceous rocks, not only do we find the remains 

 of Birds of the type now existing, but we meet with the 

 extraordinary " Toothed Birds '"' (Odontoriiithes), which seem 

 not to have survived this period, and which will be spoken 

 of in greater detail later on. Lastly, almost all the existing 

 orders of Birds are represented by the time we reach the 

 middle of the Tertiary period, and the distribution and char- 

 acters of the more important fossil forms will be treated of 

 in discussing the several orders in question. 



