Prof. Hitchcock on Ichnolithology, or Fossil Footmarks. 297 



and investigation of these footmarks. I do this with great re- 

 luctance, not only because it is difficult to speak of one's own la- 

 bors unexceptionably, but especially because I shall be brought 

 into some apparent collision with Dr. Deane, between whom and 

 myself there has existed to this time an uninterrupted friendship. 

 But really I do not see how I can do justice to myself or to oth- 

 ers, without detailing the facts ; and I cannot believe that any 

 reasonable man will complain, if the facts are carefully stated. 



About the year 1802, (possibly a year earlier or later,) Mr. 

 Pliny Moody of South Hadley, in Massachusetts, then a boy, 

 turned np with a plough upon his father's farm in that place, a 

 stone, containing in relief five tracks of the Ornithoidichnitcs fu- 

 licoides, (see Plate 48, fig. 55 of my Final Report;) and it was 

 put down as a door-step, because it contained tracks, and the 

 neighbors used facetiously to remark to Mr. Moody, that he must 

 have heavy poultry that could make such tracks on stone. After 

 Mr. Moody (junior) had left home for school or college, Dr. Elihu 

 Dwight of South Hadley purchased this stone, because it con- 

 tained these tracks. It was retained by him nearly thirty years, 

 when I purchased it for my cabinet, 1 think in 1839. Dr. Dwight 

 used pleasantly to remark to his visitors, that these were probably 



the tracks of Noah's raven. 



In 1834, some gentlemen in Greenfield united their contribu- 

 tions to obtain flagging-stones for one of their streets. Mr. Wil- 

 liam Wilson was the agent who procured them ; and when they 

 *ere brought from the quarry in Montague, in the spring of 1835, 

 ne noticed very distinct tracks upon them, which he referred to 

 w "'e turkey tribe," though destitute of the hind toe. He pointed 

 l hem out to several of his neighbors, among whom was Dr. 

 Deane, as he thinks ; though he does not claim having suggested 

 t0 him that they were made by " the turkey tribe." That idea 

 Wa s doubtless original with both, as it seems to have been with 

 0l hers in different parts of the valley, and originated in a sort of 

 re semblance--not very close indeed— between these tracks and 

 tf ie foot of a turkey ; although of course no geologist would en- 

 ter tain such an opinion, since he knows that our present animals 

 d'd not exist in the red sandstone days. . It was about the same 

 tir ne that Dr. Deane called my attention to the subject in the fol- 

 ding letter, dated March 7, 1835. 



