was 



Association of American Geologists and Naturalists. 1 13 



Prof. Hitchcock then read his "Report on Ichnolithology or 

 Fossil Footmarks, with a description of the Coprolites of Birds, 

 discovered recently in the Connecticut Valley," &c. 



Ichnolithology is the science of footmarks in stone, and is a quite re- 



cent branch of Paleontology. The object of this paper was to give its 



history, and to add some new facts respecting the footmarks of this 

 country. 



Dr. Duncan gave the first trustworthy description of fossil footsteps in 

 the sandstone of Scotland in 1828. They were those of tortoise. In 

 1881, Mr. Scrope described some tracks of crustaceans in the forest 

 marble of England. In 1834 the tracks of an animal called the Chiro- 

 therium were found in Saxony, which Mr. Owen now refers to the Laby- 

 rmthodon, or a frog as large at least as an ox. In 1835 the tracks of 

 birds were described from the Connecticut valley. With the four new 

 species added by the author in this report, no less than thirty-four spe- 

 cies have now been discovered in that valley, some of them sixteen 

 inches long, or four times longer than the foot of the ostrich. In regard 

 jo the first discovery of these tracks, it was stated that the first ..„„ 

 found in 1802, by Mr. Moody, and Dr. Dwight of South Hadley, and 

 °y them regarded as' the tracks of birds, but no account of them was 

 published. In 1835, Dr. Deane, of Greenfield, called Prof. II.'s atten- 

 tion to tracks of this kind, discovered in another locality. After care- 

 " y investigating the facts, the latter published, in 1836, an account of 

 en species, and five years afterwards of twenty seven species, in his 

 , na re P ort on the Geology of Massachusetts. Up to that time the au- 

 or maintained that he had prosecuted this subject alone, and that no 

 01 -er person had investigated it scientifically, and therefore he had a 

 r 'g it to be regarded as the real discoverer of bird-tracks in stone, al- 

 ough others first found them. He thought that on this point injustice 

 een done him in the journals of this country and of Europe, by 

 I osenting others as having preceded him in the discovery and explo- 

 °n of these tracks, although he believed that such injustice M-as 

 y unintentional on the part of those who had done it. 

 ie author proceeded to describe other examples of fossil footmarks 

 e re cently, such as those of Chirotheria, tortoises and reptiles, at 

 e ocalities in England, among which were some like those of birds ; 

 Wo angular tracks in Germany ; of those of fish, mollusca, and 

 s in England ; of bird-tracks in New Jersey, of reptiles in Nova 

 a > and of supposed tracks on the slates of Hudson river, 

 announced also that he had within a few months discovered the 

 pro ites, or petrified excrements of birds, in the sandstone of the Con- 



valley. He submitted specimens to Dr. Samuel L. Dana, of 



OKu ^,No.l._ApriI.June > 1844. 15 



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