ROOM II. FOSSIL REMAINS OF BIRDS. 91 



United States were deposited ; but, unfortunately, notwith- 

 standing the preponderance of the evidence in favour of the 

 ornithic origin of these mysterious imprints on the rocks, the 

 only certain proofs remains of the skeleton are still 

 wanting : no bones of animals of a 'higher class than fishes 

 and reptiles having been discovered. 



Oolitic and Wealden Epochs. In the vast fluviatile 

 formation, the Wealden of the South-East of England, which 

 abounds in the remains of terrestrial plants and reptiles, 

 numerous fragments of bones of such tenuity as to show that 

 they belonged to animals capable of flight, have from time to 

 time been collected, since my discovery and announcement, in 

 1822, of the occurrence of supposed bones of birds in the 

 strata of Tilgate Forest. Some of the bones in my collection 

 were regarded, by Baron Cuvier, and subsequently by other 

 eminent anatomists, as unquestionably those of birds ; one spe- 

 cimen especially was conceived to be decisive of the question, 

 for Professor Owen supposed it to be the tarso-metatarsal of 

 a wader, with the oval cicatrix for the attachment of the hind 

 toe ; but this fossil ultimately proved to be the distal end of 

 a humerus. 



Later observations have shown that it is probable all the 

 presumed ornithic remains from the Wealden belong to 

 Pterodactyles, as well as those from the oolitic strata of 

 Stonesfield. The microscopic examination of some of the 

 thin cylindrical bones from each of these formations, by Mr. 

 Quekett and Mr. Bowerbank, has, however, revealed a struc- 

 ture which these gentlemen regard as exclusively ornithic. 



Cretaceom Epoch. In the Chalk formation many osseous 

 remains of animals capable of flight, as indicated by the 

 articulations, and the extreme tenuity of the walls of the 

 bones, have been obtained from Burham quarries, near 

 Maidstone. Some of these specimens have been figured and 

 described by Professor Owen as those of a bird allied to the 

 Albatross, under the name of Cimoliornis Diomedeiis ; l but the 

 occurrence in the same strata of the skull, jaws with teeth, and 

 other unquestionable bones of gigantic Pterodactyles, and the 

 absence, in the fossils, of osteological characters exclusively 



i " British Fossils, Mammals, and Birds," p. 545 ; and Dixon's Fossils 

 of Sussex," p. 403. 



