304 



FOSSIL BIRDS. 



FRANCE. 



States. The scientific exploration of these 

 wide regions, which has been promoted by the 

 rational policy of the Government at Washing- 

 ton, has revealed more important forms of 

 extinct life, and enriched the sciences of pale- 

 ontology and comparative biology with more 

 valuable data in recent years than the discov- 

 eries in all other lands together. Of these dis- 

 coveries, the group of toothed birds classified 

 by Professor O. C. Marsh, which ho has ranged 

 in a sub-class, giving to this the name Odont- 

 ornithes, is perhaps of higher scientific value 

 than all the rest, not excepting the hipparion, 

 through which the Darwinians have traced the 

 ancestry of the horse, and which has furnished 

 them with an effective argument in support of 

 the development theory. In the same geolog- 

 ical horizon in which the Odontornithes were 

 discovered a great number of pterodactyls, or 

 flying reptiles, were found. All these belong 

 to a new order, the chief characteristic of 

 which helps to bridge the gap between birds 

 and reptiles in an important particular, and 

 one complementary to the missing link afforded 

 in the leading mark of the Odontornithes. This 

 is the absence of teeth, on account of which 

 peculiarity the name Pteranodontia, was be- 

 stowed upon the order. The affinity is traced 

 further back in a group of wingless reptiles of 

 an earlier period, which are likewise toothless. 

 They are called the Sauranodontia, and are 

 allied to the icthyosaurus. The Pteranodontia, 

 were gigantic animals, some of them having a 

 spread of wings measuring twenty-five feet. 



In the course of his ten years' researches 

 before the publication of his monograpli on 

 the Odontornithes, which forms vol. vii of the 

 publications of the "Survey of the Fortieth 

 Parallel," and the first of the "Memoirs of 

 the Peabody Museum of Yale College," and 

 is the opening volume of a work which will 

 embody all his investigations of the extinct Ver- 

 tebrata of North America, Professor Marsh 

 had distinguished twenty species and eight 

 genera of toothed birds. Over a hundred spec- 

 imens of this type of animals were found. 

 These are preserved in the Peabody Museum 

 of Natural History at New Haven. Many of 

 them are remarkably complete ; but some of 

 the species are represented by very fragment- 

 ary remains. The first discoveries of these 

 fossil birds were made in 1870 by Professor 

 Marsh, who revisited the field the following 

 season and the next, afterward delegating the 

 exploratory work to others. 



The eight genera and twenty species de- 

 scribed in Professor Marsh's monograph are 

 as follows : 



The remains hitherto discovered in America 

 of these strange forms of the Mesozoic age be- 

 long to the Cretaceous period. Earlier types 

 will probably be found in the Jurassic deposits, 

 and possibly still lower down. The three-toed 

 foot-prints in the Triassic beds of the Connecti- 

 cut Valley, which attracted much attention a 

 few years ago as presumably the tracks of birds, 

 are now almost unanimously ascribed to the 

 dinosaurian reptiles whose bones are found in 

 the same deposits. Remains of birds have been 

 found on the Atlantic coast in the cretaceous 

 rocks, notably in the greensands of New Jer- 

 sey. These fossils consist only of separate 

 bones, which do not allow of being strictly 

 classified. The specimens from the West are 

 many of them nearly complete skeletons, which 

 cast a flood of light upon the origin of the bird 

 type. They were exhumed from the creta- 

 ceous strata of the plains of Kansas and Colo- 

 rado, which consist for the main part of fine 

 yellow chalk and calcareous shale, marine de- 

 posits undisturbed by upheavals, in which the 

 numerous fossils of the reptile age which they 

 contain are preserved in an almost perfect con- 

 dition. The geological horizon of the Odont- 

 ornithes thus far discovered is within the Mid- 

 dle Cretaceous. The strata in which they have 

 been found, named by Marsh the Pteranodon 

 beds, contain besides these species abundant 

 remains of Mosasauroid. reptiles, Plesiosaurs 

 resembling the Pliosaurus type, the Pterano- 

 dons or toothless Pterodactyls, and multitudi- 

 nous fishes. 



The Mesozoic birds divide themselves into 

 two distinct and widely divergent types ; but, 

 as they both possess teeth, they are included 

 in the new sub-class of Odontornithes. One 

 type, represented by the genus Hesperornis, is 

 that of large, wingless, aquatic birds, some of 

 them of enormous size, whose teeth were fixed 

 in grooves. The other group, of which the 

 genus Icthyornis may be taken as the typical 

 representatives, are small birds with large 

 wings and remarkably light and hollow bones, 

 whose flying powers must therefore have been 

 enormous. Their teeth were fastened in sock- 

 ets, and their vertebrae were biconcave. 



Marsh has found a fossil bird in the Jurassic 

 Atlantosaurm beds of Wyoming, the oldest 

 representative of the class except, perhaps, the 

 ArchcBopteryx. The name given to the species 

 is Laopteryx priscus. The specimen consists 

 of a portion of the skull, which indicates a bird 

 larger than the blue heron. The bones of the 

 skull are pneumatic. In general character it 

 resembles the Ratitce. The bird probably pos- 

 sessed biconcave vertebrae, and was furnished 

 with teeth, as one was found in the matrix 

 similar to those of the Icthyornis. 



FRANCE (REPUBLIQUE FRAN^ISE). By the 

 terms of the present Constitution, voted by 

 the National Assembly in 1871, and bearing 

 date February 25, 1875, the legislative power 

 is vested in an Assembly of two Houses the 

 Chamber of Deputies and the Senate ; and the 



