452 Miscellaneous. 



tlie torrid zone ; but I have collected bones undoubtedly belonging 

 to a Trogon in tbe deposits of Saint-Oei'and-lc-Pny. These birds 

 usually live in -well-wooded places, where they feed on insects ; thus 

 the presence of Tror/on (/alliens in the Bourbonnais tends to prove the 

 existence of considerable forests in the vicinity of the lakes of this 

 part of France. 



The Gangas or Sandgrouse live at present in Africa and in the 

 ■warmer regions of Asia : thej' are only birds of passage in the south 

 of Europe ; but they are represented in the ancient fauna of the 

 Allier by a peculiar species, to which I have given the name of 

 Pt erodes sepultus. 



The iSalanganes (which have been confounded with the Swallows 

 by most ornithologists, but whicli really differ therefrom greatly in 

 their mode of organization, and belong to the family of the Swifts or 

 Cypselida? ) now inhabit only India, Cochin Cliina, some of the Poly- 

 jiesian islands, and the Mascareiae islands. One species of this 

 groiTp, very nearly allied to the existing species, has left its remains 

 in the tertiary strata of tlie Bourbonnais. 



A large bird of the stork family seems to represent, in this region, 

 the Marabous, which now-a-days occur from the Senegal to Cochin 

 China. 



The discovery of a secretary-bird in the midst of this ancient 

 population seems to me very interesting. Serpentarias or Chipo- 

 geranus reptilivonis, which occurs in Africa, from Abyssinia to the 

 neighbourhood of the Cape of Good Hope, is at present the sole 

 representative of a peculiar family of predaceous birds organized for 

 running rather than for flying. Now, as I have shown with regard 

 to the flamingoes, the zoological groups which, at the present day, 

 are represented only hj a single species, or by a very small number 

 of sj^ecies, probably at an ancient period possessed a numerical im- 

 portance not inferior to that of the other equivalent natural groups. 

 The existence of a second luember of the family Serpentariida:' in the 

 mioeene epoch tlierefore seems to me to be an important zoological 

 fact ; and the presence of these large birds of prey in France and in 

 Africa at different periods constitutes a new featui'c of resemblance 

 between the mioceue fauna of the Bourbonnais and the existing 

 fauna of the African continent. I have as yet found only a single 

 bone of the foot of this fossil secretary-bird ; but the organic cha- 

 racters of this part of the skeleton are so distinct that there can bo 

 no uncertainty as to the determination of the type to which the bii'd 

 from which this fragment was derived belonged. 



In my first work on fossil birds, submitted to the Academy in 

 18G5, I showed that at the mioeene epoch flamingoes, ibises, and 

 pelicans inhabited the shores of the lakes of the Bourbonnais ; but it 

 was necessary, to be very reserved as to the conclusions whieli might 

 be drawn from these facts with regard to the general character of the 

 ornithological population. The fresh discoveries which I have jiist 

 made known fully confirm the conjectures which I had formed upon 

 this subject, and lead me to think that, at tin; period when the lower 

 mioeene beds of the Allier were deposited, the 1)iological conditions 



