192 PETRIFACTIONS AND THEIR TEACHINGS. CHAP. III. 



to the albatross, 1 Mr. Bowerbank pronounced them to belong 

 to a Pterodactyl e ; probably to the colossal species (named by 

 him P. giganteus), of which he had obtained jaws with teeth, 

 and other remains, from the same chalk quarry ; a conclusion 

 which has since been satisfactorily established. 



On the other hand, certain bones from the Wealden and 

 Oolite are regarded both by Mr. Quekett, and Mr. Bowerbank, 

 as exhibiting unequivocally a structure peculiar to birds. 



With regard to the value of such evidence, I would venture to 

 express my opinion, that although in the entire absence of more 

 obvious and certain diagnostic characters, it would be unsafe 

 to admit the relative proportions of the bone-cells as conclu- 

 sive proof, it is not unreasonable to infer that the intimate 

 structure of the solid parts of the skeleton may have relation 

 to the peculiar organisation of a class, and that the micro- 

 scopic test, if applied with due caution, will prove an impor- 

 tant auxiliary in the interpretation of the true nature of the 

 fossil bones of unknown animals. 



Some of these presumed birds' bones are so' extremely thin 



the distinguished Honorary Secretary of the Palaeontograpblcal Society, 

 to whose indulgent consideration I therefore leave him.* 



1 These bones from the Kentish Chalk are described in Professor 

 Owen's " BRITISH MAMMALS AND BIRDS," under the name of" CIMOLIORNIS 

 DIOMEDEUS. Long-winged Bird of the Chalk" "Bird allied to the Alba- 

 tross? (Diomedea}. In the late Mr. Dixon's work, edited by Professor 

 Owen, and published last year (1850), he again figures the specimen 

 (though not a Sussex Fossil), and affirms, " I have yet obtained no evi- 

 dence which shakes my original conclusion, that the bone is part of the 

 shaft of a humerus of a longipennate bird, like the A Ibatross." (Dixon. p. 

 402.) And after commenting on Mr. Bowerbank's observations, he remarks, 

 " When such obvious ornithic characters as these, and especially those of 

 thetrochlear end of the bone, determine their nature," &c. And yet Pro- 

 fessor Owen accuses me of " misrepresenting him,"f and of being guilty 

 of an "unamiable exaggeration"^ of his mistake, because, in a popular 

 work, " The Wonders of Geology," I stated that he had regarded the 

 bone as belonging to an extinct species of Albatross" using the word 

 species in its general sense, as a sort, or kind. If I had written " a species 

 of the genus Diomedea or A Ibatross," it might have borne the interpre- 

 tation Professor Owen now affects to put upon it. The same unamiable 

 expression was employed in my " Medals of Creation " (p. 804), pub- 

 lished seven years ago, and then gave no offence ! 



* See Professor Owen's " Fossil Reptilia of the Cretaceous Formation/' 

 Monographs of the Palaeontographical Society. 1851. p. 83. 

 t Ibid. p. 82 p. 83. 



