Miscellaneous. 451 



even the starch-grains contained in its cells, and the mycelium of a 

 parasitic Funi>'us traversing some of thoin, were perfectly represented. 

 Its precise origjn Avas unknown ; it was said to lie probably derived 

 from the London Clav, or from the beds immediately below. — Proc. 

 GeoL /S'oc. March 9, 1870. 



Observations on the OrnitJioIor/ical Fauna of the Bourhonnais during 

 the Middle Tertiari/ Period. By M. A. Milne-Edwarbs. 



When I commenced the pala3ontological investigation of the 

 tertiary strata of the Bourhonnais, I Avas far from thinking that 

 the birds whose remains are buried in those deposits would furnish 

 clearer and more precise indications as to the general character of 

 the miocene fauna of that part of France than the fossil mammalia 

 and reptiles of the same region. In fact, birds, being endowed with 

 powerful organs of locomotion, are in general less settled than the 

 species belonging to the classes mammalia and reptiles. 



When I presented to the Academy my work on the fossil birds 

 of France, there was notliing to justily me in expressing an opinion 

 of this kind ; but by pursuing my researches upon this subject I 

 have arrived at new results, which seem to me of great importance 

 and of a nature to enlighten us as to the character of this tertiary 

 fauna better than the pala3ontological history of the other vertebrate 

 animals of the basin of the AUicr, in the present state of our know- 

 ledge. 



Among the fossil birds the presence of which I have recently 

 ascertained in the tertiary deposits of Saint-Gerand-le-Puy and 

 Langy, there are several which give to this ancient fauna an al- 

 most intertropical and, especially, an African character — namely, 

 Parrots, Trogons, Salanganes, Gangas, Marabous, and Secretaries or 

 Serpent-eaters. 



The Parrots constitute a perfectly natural family, well-marked 

 and easily characterized by the structure of the bones as well as by 

 the external form. It occupies the hottest regions in both hemi- 

 spheres, and has no representatives in the present day either in Eu- 

 rope or in extratropical Asia, or in the part of America situated 

 north of the Gulf of Mexico. 



In the tertiary period thei'e existed in France a parrot which, 

 in its osteologicul characters, differs notably from the Australian 

 types, as also from the maccaws and other American genera, and 

 presents much analogy with certain African species, especially Psif- 

 tacus erythacus of Senegal and South Africa. This tertiary parrot 

 (which I have called Psittacus Verreaii.vii, and which I shall describe 

 in one of the next parts of my work on fossil birds) is the sole ex- 

 ample of a parrot which lived in geological times, and it establishes 

 the first mark of resemblance between the miocene ornithological 

 faunaa of the Allier and the existing fauna of Africa. 



The Couroucous or Trogons, the plumage of which is not less bril- 

 liant than that of the Parrots, now inhabit the hoti:est parts of the 

 globe ; they occur in America, in Asia, and in Africn, but only in 



