SPAR IND Kc ewe 
(IB) ate 
SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE. 
GEOLOGY. a 
1. Remarks on Fossil Birds. By Mr Paul Gervaes.—Ornitholites, or 
the fossil indications of the ancient existence of birds, are of four prin- 
cipal kinds: bones, eggs, feathers, and impressions left by the feet 
when walking over deposits still soft. 
The only known impressions have been remarked in the new red sand- 
stone of Connecticut, by Mr Hitchcock, who has given them the name of 
Ornithichnites ; but the signification of these impressions has not yet 
been pointed out in a sufficiently scientific manner, 
The feathers and eggs of birds have been hitherto met with only in 
the tertiary formations of Europe, and in small numbers; the former in 
France and Italy, the latter in Auvergne, 
The fossil bones of birds cannot lead us, in every case, to the precise 
determination of the species to which they belong. Pretty often we can 
only ascertain the Linnzan genus from them ; in other cases, they indi- 
cate only the family, order, or even the class merely. A very small 
number only can be determined specifically ; and these species are the 
only ones which ought to be named according to the principles of the 
Linnean nomenclature. 
The fossil bones of birds, the species of which cannot with certainty 
be recognised, may take the collective name of Osteornis, and a qualify- 
ing term added to the latter will indicate, by approximation, the nature 
of the birds which these remains lead us to conjecture; but without 
which, geologists ought nevertheless to introduce them as so many esta- 
blished species into their systematic catalogues. M. Adolphe Brongniart 
has, for a long time, advantageously followed a similar mode of nomen- 
clature in his skilful researches relating to fossil vegetables. 
It is at present impossible to indicate with precision at what period 
the class of birds began to exist on the terrestrial globe, the ornitholite 
formations having, as yet, been very imperfectly examined, compared 
with those of the other vertebrate animals. 
The present state of the science, however, shews that reptiles are not, 
as is still often asserted, the most highly organized vertebrates which 
existed in the secondary period, since birds were their contemporaries 
during that epoch. 
Without taking into account the ornithichnites of the new red sand- 
stones, we possess well established ornitholites of the secondary forma- 
tions. ‘They have been found in Tilgate Forest, in the neocomian for- 
mations of Glaris, and near Maidstone. We owe the determination of 
them to Messrs Mantell, Meyer, and Owen. According to the prin- 
ciples of nomenclature proposed above, by taking into account the affi- 
nities which have been asigned to them, we may name these, Osteornis 
ardeaceus, scolopacinus and diomideus. 
The ornitholites of the tertiary formations are more numerous, and 
principally belong to fresh-water deposits. France possesses two very 
rich deposits of them in the gypsum of Paris, and in the marls and lime- 
stones of Auvergne. 
